As Vice President Kamala Harris marches toward the Democratic nomination, climate advocates like what they see.
Even before he’s finished his term, President Joe Biden made his stamp as the most pro-climate president in history. And Harris is an exciting climate candidate in her own right, multiple advocates told CNN.
Harris is a “tremendous champion” on climate and environmental justice, said Tiernan Sittenfeld, senior vice president of government affairs for the League of Conservation Voters Action Fund.
Climate action has run through Harris’s career for decades. As California’s attorney general, Harris sued big oil companies like BP and ConocoPhillips, and investigated Exxon Mobil for its role in climate change disinformation. While in the Senate, she sponsored the Green New Deal resolution. And as vice president, Harris made the crucial tie-breaking vote to pass Democrats’ historic climate bill.
“Vice President Harris would kick ass against Trump,” Biden’s first national climate adviser Gina McCarthy said in a statement. “She will fight every day for all Americans to have access to clean air, clean water, and a healthy environment.”
Harris’s candidacy comes at a make-or-break moment for the planet. 2023 was the hottest year on record, and 2024 has only continued that trend, with fresh data showing July 21 was the hottest day on record globally.
With rising global temperatures pushing the world closer to irreparable harm, scientists and energy groups say the only way to minimize the damage is to rapidly deploy clean energy on a massive scale by the end of this decade.
Advocates say Harris’s record on climate couldn’t be more different from her Republican opponent, former President Donald Trump – a man who has vowed to pull the US out of its climate commitments and to “drill, baby, drill.”
With Democrats quickly uniting around Harris, they are eager to shine the spotlight back on Trump’s agenda.
“It’s largely been forgotten how disastrous Trump has been on climate and how disastrous it would be for our planet if he’s elected again,” Jamal Raad, co-founder and former executive director of Evergreen Action, told CNN.
How Democrats plan to campaign on climate
The stakes of the 2024 election for the global climate couldn’t be higher.
Trump has vowed to push America decisively back to fossil fuels, promising to unwind Biden’s climate and clean energy legacy and pull America out of its global climate commitments.
Given the stakes, climate advocates are eager to shine a light on the stark contrast between Trump and Harris.
“Harris wants to keep building this bright clean energy future, and Trump and Big Oil really do represent the worst of our past,” said Lori Lodes, executive director of advocacy group Climate Power.
Republicans are already attacking Harris on energy, specifically for her earlier support of a fracking ban during her 2020 campaign for president. Biden opposed such a ban, and Harris later walked back that support when she became his running mate.
Democrats are hoping to use their climate agenda to motivate young people, which polls showed Biden was struggling with. Advocates said Democrats may benefit from a younger candidate speaking to young voters on climate.
And advocates added Harris’s detachment from some of Biden’s more controversial moves on climate as president – such as his approval last year of the massive Alaska oil drilling project known as Willow – may benefit her.
Members of the youth climate group Sunrise Movement will be watching to see whether Harris moves to distinguish herself from Biden on Willow, Sunrise Movement spokesperson Stevie O’Hanlon told CNN.
“Does Harris break from Biden’s most unpopular decisions with young people?” O’Hanlon said. “She has an opportunity to define herself as a new candidate and as different from Biden. That’s the critical work for her in the coming days.”
Second-term priorities
A second Democratic administration will continue implementing Biden’s climate bill and defend many of Biden’s marquee climate rules against legal challenges.
If elected, one of the biggest climate goals Harris would have to craft early in her administration is how much the planet would reduce its climate pollution by 2035 – a requirement of the Paris climate agreement—the same agreement Trump has vowed he would once again pull the US out of if elected.
A recent analysis from the nonpartisan Rhodium Group found that while the US isn’t on track to hit Biden’s goal of slashing US emissions in half by 2030, it could surpass that goal by 2035. The Rhodium report shows cutting emissions in the power sector will be essential to US climate goals, and that will take strong Environmental Protect Agency rules in addition to Biden’s climate bill.
“It will matter who’s in control of the EPA,” Rhodium analyst Ben King told CNN.
Harris has maintained a close working relationship with Biden’s environmental cabinet heads, including EPA administrator Michael Regan.
The two have traveled together, including on a listening tour on lead pipes. Speaking to CNN, Regan recalled an emotional and in-depth conversation Harris had with a Milwaukee mother whose son was affected by lead poisoning.
“She engaged in a conversation with that mother that I’ll never forget,” Regan said. “There isn’t a lot of relief you can provide to someone who has gone through that experience, but she found a way to connect.”
Whether on lead pipes or dispersing billions in climate funding, Regan said Harris is a leader who “doesn’t do surface – she digs in.”
