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Every Monday, in Climate on the Ballot, we pass along a topic to help you integrate climate into your newsroom’s campaign reporting. Share this newsletter with your colleagues on the politics beat. Vea la versión en español de “El clima en la boleta.”
This Week: Kamala Harris
Election Day is in less than 100 days, and suddenly, it’s a whole new presidential race. Democratic party officials and voters coalesced around the candidacy of Vice President Kamala Harris in a staggeringly swift show of support after President Joe Biden dropped out of the race and endorsed her.
The elevation of Harris as the likely Democratic presidential nominee presents an opportunity to look at her climate record and what a Harris presidency might mean for US climate policy. The Biden-Harris administration has made progress towards its goal of cutting US emissions in half by 2030, but it’s not happening fast enough — and there is still much work to be done. The Inflation Reduction Act, passed in 2022, is the largest investment in clean energy in US history, but the Biden-Harris administration had hoped to do even more. What can Harris’s record tell us about her likely climate priorities were she to win the presidency?
Reporting Ideas
- Explore Harris’s climate record through a local lens. Harris began focusing on environmental issues in 2005 when she established an environmental justice unit while serving as San Francisco’s district attorney. As a US senator, she sponsored the Green New Deal and introduced a comprehensive environmental justice bill. Talk with local environmental justice advocates about how Justice40, an initiative Harris worked on, impacts their work. What White House–led initiatives would help them further their work?
- Harris took on Big Oil as California’s attorney general. What could that mean for your media market if a Harris administration did the same? Harris sued several fossil fuel companies for environmental violations, including methane leaks and oil spills, winning multi-million dollar settlements; she investigated Exxon Mobil for misleading the public on climate change, although she didn’t file a suit.
- The Biden-Harris administration handed out 20% more oil and gas licenses than the Trump administration. Despite a stated commitment to reduce emissions, the US “is leading a stampede of fossil fuel expansion” in 2024, reports the Guardian. What is Harris’s position on new drilling? What new licenses are being greenlit in your coverage area?
- Harris was the highest-ranking US official to attend last year’s COP28 UN climate talks. She announced the US commitment to tripling its renewable energy capacity by 2030, an additional $3 billion for the Green Climate Fund, and a pledge of $17.5 million for the new international climate aid fund, which some called “embarrassing.” Dig into Harris’s proposals for future international cooperation on climate action.
Take Inspiration
- “Vice President Kamala Harris has for years made the environment a top concern, from prosecuting polluters as California’s attorney general to sponsoring the Green New Deal as a senator,” writes Lisa Friedman in The New York Times.
- During her 2020 campaign, Harris’s climate policies were more ambitious than Biden’s and “focused on ‘sticks, not just carrots,’ including investigating and bringing lawsuits against fossil fuel companies, as she’d done in California,” notes Heatmap’s Matthew Zeitlin.
- ExxonKnews’s Isabella Garcia takes a look at “Harris’s previous pledges and actions to hold fossil fuel companies accountable,” and what they might portend if she wins in November.
- President Biden talked about his administration’s climate action in terms of jobs and the economy on the campaign trail. Sarah Metz at CBS News asks: Will Harris take a different approach? And will she bring climate voters to the polls in November?
- Over at Yale Climate Connections, Samantha Harrington, Sara Peach, and Pearl Marvell compare Harris’s record to Trump’s, including quotes from her where she connects climate change to extreme weather and justice, and renewable energy proliferation with jobs creation and lower energy costs for consumers.
Spotlight Piece
“Ursula von der Leyen has just pulled off a delicate green balancing act,” wrote Zia Weise, Leonie Cater, and Marianne Gros in Politico after the German politician won a second term as EU president earlier this month. “Basically, she pulled a Joe Biden — taking inspiration from the U.S. president’s decision to disguise his signature climate law as an economic package dubbed the Inflation Reduction Act.”
Check Out Locally Sourced!
CCNow’s biweekly newsletter, Locally Sourced, helps journalists localize the global issue of climate change in ways that resonate with local audiences. The first issues focus on extreme heat and tropical cyclones. Sign up.
Want to share feedback and stories inspired by this newsletter? Shoot us a note at editors@coveringclimatenow.org.