5 Climate Questions for the Candidates Ahead of the Presidential Debate

Sept. 10, 2024

As Vice President Kamala Harris and Donald Trump take the stage for their first, and possibly only, debate ahead of the election on Nov. 5, it’s unclear whether or not climate change will be one of the topics they address.

The two candidates have diametrically opposed views on the broad outlines of that central issue. Harris has referred to global warming as a “crisis” that needs to be addressed with urgency. Trump has called climate change a hoax and vowed to “drill, baby, drill.”

On a number of more specific points, however, Harris and Trump have offered clues to their policy priorities that provide insights into how each might govern should they win.

If Times climate reporters and editors were moderating the debate, which is hosted by ABC News, here are five questions we would ask, and some background to inform how each candidate might answer.

The United States is currently the world’s biggest producer of both oil and gas, the burning of which are the main contributors to global warming. Would your administration continue working to expand fossil fuel production, or is it time for the U.S. to start moving away from fossil fuels?

Harris has walked back her 2019 pledge to ban fracking, a key way of producing oil and gas. Her softening of this stance reflects economic concerns. While the Biden-Harris administration has worked to promote clean energy, it has also benefited from an economy buoyed by record fossil fuel production. Besides fracking, another key area of focus is liquefied natural gas exports. The Biden administration said it would ban new liquefied natural gas export permits, but that decision is being challenged in court.

Trump’s position is less nuanced. He has said he would unburden the oil and gas industry of regulations they find onerous and promote an aggressive agenda of oil and gas drilling and exploration. In a direct appeal to the industry, he told a group of fossil fuel executives they should donate $1 billion to his campaign because he could roll back environmental regulations if elected. He also said one of the first actions he would take if re-elected would be to sharply expand oil and gas production.

Last year was another 12 months of record-breaking heat and extreme weather: Some 645 people in died in Maricopa County, Ariz., alone from heat-related illnesses. Economic losses from climate change are mounting and adding billions of dollars worth of damage to roads, bridges, seaside communities and critical infrastructure. How would your administration help the country prepare for more such disasters and prevent more death?

As vice president, Harris has talked about the importance of helping vulnerable populations recover from climate-related disasters. In 2022, she announced more than $1 billion in grants to help communities prepare for extreme weather events. “As the climate crisis gets worse, extreme weather will pose a rapidly growing danger to a rapidly growing number of communities,” she said at the time. But beyond her record as vice president, there are few clues to how Harris would approach the issue.

Trump has falsely claimed that climate change is not making extreme weather worse. Five months into his administration, the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration did not have leaders. And while Trump offered federal support for relief efforts after a number of severe storms, he was slow to respond to many weather disasters, most notably Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico.

Electric vehicle sales growth has slowed and carmakers are walking back E.V. expansion plans. What would your administration do to jump-start this industry, which is both a key way to reduce emissions and an engine of economic growth?

The Biden administration allocated $7.5 billion to build out a network of E.V. chargers around the country. The Inflation Reduction Act, the Biden administration’s signature climate law, included substantial subsidies for the purchase of E.V.s and incentives designed to promote domestic manufacturing of batteries.

But while there are plans to get the chargers up and running in the coming years, hardly any have been built with the federal funds so far, and E.V. sales growth is down. When she ran for president in 2020, Harris said she supported a mandate that carmakers phase out gasoline powered engines by 2035. Her campaign won’t say if she still holds that position.

Trump has recently changed his tune on electric vehicles. After years ridiculing them and saying they were too expensive, he has recently begun extolling their virtues. Trump modified his stance after Elon Musk, the chief executive of Tesla, endorsed him and pledged to support his campaign. Yet at the same time, Trump has called for eliminating tax credits in the Inflation Reduction Act that subsidize E.V. purchases.

The Inflation Reduction Act has helped create more than 330,000 new jobs and led to $265 billion in new clean energy investments, according to the White House. How would each of you manage the continued implementation of this law, and what would you do to change it?

Harris cast the tiebreaking vote for the I.R.A. and has recently doubled down on her support for the law. A Harris administration would very likely continue to use the I.R.A. to promote clean energy investments and encourage Americans to adopt energy-saving technologies such as heat pumps and electric vehicles.

Trump has said he would rescind any climate measures included in the I.R.A. that he could. This could mean rolling back the law’s E.V. subsidies and incentives that encourage small businesses to install charging stations. Many of the investments benefiting from the I.R.A. are in Republican states, however, and targeting those projects may be politically unpopular with Trump’s base.

China is outpacing the United States when it comes the deployment of solar power and electric vehicles. You both have supported tariffs on Chinese goods, including renewable technology and solar panels, but climate change diplomacy is one of the few areas where the U.S. and China are working together. How would you strike a balance between domestic trade interests and fighting climate change?

As my colleague Lisa Friedman wrote last week, “If Vice President Kamala Harris wins, the United States is likely to keep pushing nations, including China, to set ambitious targets for cutting the greenhouse gases that are dangerously heating the planet.” At the same time, Harris has supported existing tariffs on Chinese solar panels and electric cars, which she has said will improve domestic manufacturing.

“If former President Donald J. Trump returns to the White House,” Friedman wrote, “he is expected to withdraw the United States from the global fight against climate change, as he did during his first term, and release any pressure on China to step up its efforts.” That could lead China to relax its efforts to reduce planet warming emissions. And while Trump also favors tariffs on Chinese goods, his pledges to weaken the Inflation Reduction Act could set back U.S. efforts to catch up with China on solar panel and E.V. manufacturing.

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/10/climate/harris-trump-debate-climate-change-questions.html?searchResultPosition=2