U.S. Elections: What's Been Done and What's at Stake for the Climate?
With about half of worldwide voters having to hit the polls this year, 2024 will be the year with the most elections in history ever. This wave of elections does not exclude the United States of America, where voting for the new President will happen in early November. Having emitted approximately 5,500 million metric tons in 2022 according to the EPA, the U.S. is the world’s second-largest emitter after China, and is a critical actor in determining emission levels on a global scale. With the geopolitical role that the U.S. plays in the international context, the political climate strategies adopted starting with the new presidency will also determine what example this country is trying to set: this year, the trajectory of the nation could change for the better, but election results could also consolidate the U.S. role in contributing to emissions worldwide. On one hand, with President Biden’s sudden drop from the presidential race and the increasing possibility of Kamala Harris’s nomination as his replacement, climate action would certainly gain centrality amongst government plans, but with Trump’s run to be reelected, there is a risk that climate action could become a secondary thought.
Photographer Clay Banks ,2020 , via www.unsplash.com
Donald Trump, former President and current Republican presidential nominee, and Joe Biden, the current President, have had very different approaches to climate action throughout each of their presidencies. The former, Mr. Trump has made it clear throughout his campaign that climate-oriented legislation would not be a priority. Rather than focusing on the sources of energy themselves, Trump’s focus would be on making energy affordable and making the U.S. independent energy-wise. While this does not exclude investment into renewables, which with modern technologies are becoming cheaper, it does mean that there won’t be an effort made to exclude fossil fuels from the United States’ energy sources. Furthermore, it is highly likely that in the effort to make the U.S. energy-independent, fossil fuels will play a key role in fulfilling the energy demand of the country. On his official campaign agenda Agenda47, the Republican nominee has stated that to achieve affordable energy prices and independence in the energy sector the plan is to “DRILL BABY DRILL” with his end goal being to become “Energy Independent, and even Dominant again”. His past term decisions also align with the vision he is currently pushing in his campaign. Throughout his former presidency, the Trump Administration pushed back on several proposals made throughout the Obama Administration which halted several pro-climate proposals. He replaced the Obama Clean Power Plan with the Affordable Clean Energy Rule, which had much weaker regulations and made it difficult to implement the Plan, an initiative which aimed to cut emissions from coal and gas-powered plants. Also, most notably, Trump decided to pull out of the Paris Agreement, the most internationally-renowned and recognized climate change treaty, and a driving factor to climate action globally. This was one of the biggest hits to climate policy progression in the United States in the last decade. A renewed Trump administration would not exclude a beginning to a transition, but nonetheless it would drastically slow down fossil fuel phaseout and climate action would fall short of the White House priorities.
Photographer Janine Robinson, 2020, via www.unsplash.com
On the other hand, the current President has promoted several acts which have helped fund the energy transition, the most significant being the Inflation Reduction Act. Passed in August of 2022, this act aims to provide funding into several different sectors, including investing into improving the country’s electricity grid, funding the deployment of renewable and clean energies, and the reduction of harmful air pollution. 40% of profits made throughout this act -and through other actions as well- were also designed to be attributed to disadvantaged and tribal communities through the Justice40 initiative, initiative which is centered around environmental justice principles for the the first time in the nation’s history. On top of this, it is expected that the Reduction Act provisions will allow emission levels to decrease by 40% compared to 2005 levels by 2030. While the Act mentioned above represents a significant step towards climate action, Biden’s presidency has also let down many with its failure to cut back on fossil fuels. Compared to the Trump presidency, the Biden administration granted 50% more permits for oil drilling on federal land compared to the previous administration. However, it is crucial to note that the process of obtaining permission to drill on federal land can span through many years, and that the 50% increase in permits is also centered around leases that were mostly sold during the Trump presidency. In fact when looking at lease sales, the Biden administration hit an all-time historic low of 0.13 million acres in its first 19 months compared to the alarming 4.4 million acres that were auctioned during the first year and a half of the Trump administration. This is an all-time low even for Democratic Presidents; throughout his first 19 months of president, former President Barack Obama, leased out about 7.25 million acres. Even considering the slowed lease allowance that distinguished the Biden presidency, many permits that were granted aroused noteworthy controversy. Mainly, the approval of the Willow Project, a plan to build a pipeline on Alaska’s North Slope which would allow for 600 million barrels of oil to be carried, provoked several protests from climate activists and tribal activists in the area, gathering 3 million signatures opposing the project and calling the administration out on Change.org. Drilling has not yet begun, but the approval of the project represents a huge setback to cutting down on fossil fuels, since the impacts of the project can’t be measured yet, as the oil is not on the market currently. Even with its several setbacks though, according to Environmental Integrity Project attorney Abel Russ, the past term has ”started to turn the ship in the right direction”.
Photographer Element5 Digital ,2018 , via www.unsplash.com
While the Biden administration represents one of the most progressive presidencies in terms of climate change so far, climate action still has a long way to go. With Harris’ nomination, there is still a possibility to keep the ship going the right way. Although she has not come up with a detailed proposal yet, it is sure that her climate policies would build on the Biden Administration policies of this term. Her past political decisions also back this line of thought. In 2005, working as San Francisco’s district attorney, Harris set up one of the first environmental justice units. When she ran in the primaries for Democratic nominee in 2019, she supported a ban on fracking, an especially harmful oil drilling technique, as part of her campaign. Even her chosen Vice President candidate, Tim Walz, has promoted climate action in his home state of Minnesota, and as Governor last year he signed on a law requiring power plants to use “100% climate-friendly energy” according to an NPR article. With 2023 being the hottest year ever recorded, pressure for climate-driven government policies are arising. While a second Trump term might halt fossil fuel phase-out, Harris’ election could finally set climate action on track and provide the rest of the world with an example of how central climate policy should be. The elections will play a significant part in determining how climate action will stand politically in the next four years: it is crucial for everyone to educate themselves, spread information on the importance of these elections, and, for U.S. eligible voters, it is fundamental to use the voice that’s been given to you. Climate change has gained more centrality in this year’s political debates, and awareness of the matter has heightened in recent years. Climate action in politics is still not central enough, but there is still hope for a greener future, and results from elections in November could prove just that.
