The election, in a nation that is the largest oil producer and second largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in the world, will be highly significant for climate politics both in the US and around the world.
Harris, a Democrat who is currently serving as vice president under Joe Biden, is part of a government that has passed the most ambitious climate legislation in US history.
US fossil-fuel production has surged during the Biden administration. However, the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) has set the nation on a course to slash its domestic emissions by offering billions of dollars in subsidies and tax credits for clean energy and electric vehicles.
Trump, the Republican candidate, is a climate sceptic who rolled back many environmental regulations during his 2017-2021 presidential term. He has dismissed climate policies as a “scam”, pulled the US out of the Paris Agreement and called for yet more oil production by repeating the mantra “drill, baby, drill”.
Neither candidate has yet released a detailed outline of their plans for US climate and energy policy.
Trump’s running mate is Ohio senator JD Vance, a critic of the IRA who has leaned into climate scepticism in recent years as he has aligned himself with the former president.
Climate contrast
The two parties and their presidential candidates have completely divergent views on climate change.
Both Trump and Vance have repeatedly voiced doubts about whether climate change is a threat, whether it is caused by humans or whether it even exists. The Republican platform does not mention climate change at all.
Campaign officials and advisors to Trump have reportedly been clear that they would roll back much of the regulation and spending associated with the IRA if the former president is elected.
Project 2025, a “blueprint” for the presidency assembled by the Heritage Foundation and other conservative groups, lays out plans to dismantle climate regulations and shrink or disband key climate-related agencies. While Trump has distanced himself from this plan, it has widely been viewed as a “playbook” for his second administration. (The grid above does not include any Project 2025 statements.)
In public, rather than referencing the IRA by name,Trump and Republicans have generally referred to “terminating” the “socialist green new deal” – or “green new scam”, as Trump describes it. Trump has framed climate policies generally as a waste of taxpayers’ money.
(This references the green new deal – a proposed set of policies by progressive Democrats that has never made it into legislation. It was, however, supported by Harris when she was a senator.)
Meanwhile, Harris oversaw the passing of the IRA, even casting the tie-breaking vote for it in Congress as vice president. She has called climate change an “existential threat” and has a history of prosecuting oil companies for environmental violations while she was California attorney general.
Nevertheless, many news outlets have noted that, unlike Biden, Harris has barely mentioned climate change since taking over as the Democratic nominee in August. (Some of the statements in the grid above were made in the months prior to her nomination.)
The only reference to climate in her Democratic Convention speech came when she described the ability to “live free from the pollution that fuels the climate crisis” as a “fundamental freedom” threatened by Trump. Similar language has been used by Walz.
Despite the general lack of detail on climate and energy policies so far, Harris’ campaign team has stated she intends to continue the policies implemented under the Biden administration. Climate advocates have voiced their support for her and Walz, citing their strong backgrounds in climate policy.
Beyond Harris, the Democratic platform includes a more detailed set of policy priorities, sticking to the ones set out under the Biden administration.
‘Drill, baby, drill’
Trump’s rhetoric has been light on detailed policy plans. However, one point that he has repeatedly returned to is the idea that drilling for more fossil fuels will bring financial benefits for Americans.
He has told many crowds and interviewers that “we will drill, baby, drill” – employing a well-worn Republican slogan. By tapping into the “liquid gold under our feet”, he says he will be able to bring down inflation and cut people’s energy bills.
Under Biden, the US is already the largest producer of oil in the world. Perhaps seeking to make a clear distinction between himself and his predecessor, Trump says the US will become not just “energy independent”, but “energy dominant”.
In doing this, Trump has pledged to cut energy and electricity prices “by at least half within a 12-month period”. He says US energy supplies will be massively boosted, primarily with gas, which he incorrectly describes as “clean”.
Vance has also voiced support for fossil fuels, taking aim in the past at Biden’s “wanton harassment of fossil fuel companies” and his “war on traditional American energy”.
Both Republicans have reportedly received large sums of money from the fossil-fuel industry to support their political campaigns over the years.
As for Harris, some have speculated that she could “take on” the fossil-fuel industry, drawing on her experience as a prosecutor. However, so far one of her only definitive, energy-related statements as a presidential candidate has been to support fracking.
Harris said she would ban fracking when she ran for her party’s presidential nomination in 2020. However, under fire from right-wing groups and Trump himself over her historic stance and its implications for jobs in the swing state of Pennsylvania, Harris assured the press she did not oppose fracking.
Electric cars
Another key divergence between Democrats and Republicans is over electric cars.
The Biden administration’s IRA contains tax credits and other measures to encourage the sale of electric cars in the US, as well as support the nation’s domestic car manufacturers.
It has also overseen the most stringent pollution standards for road vehicles. This measure increasingly limits collective vehicle emissions over time, meaning that more than half of the cars sold in the US by 2032 would need to be electric to meet the restrictions.
This regulation is not a mandate and does not include a future ban on the sale of petrol and diesel cars, as some other nations have done. Nevertheless, the Republican platform and Trump himself have referred to it as such, vowing to scrap it when in power.
Trump told attendees at the Republican National Convention in July that, in doing so, he would “sav[e] the US auto industry from complete obliteration”.
Trump, Vance and the Republicans in general have voiced concerns about China’s dominance in the electric vehicle industry. At the same time, Trump has suggested he may cut tax credits for electric vehicles – which are designed to encourage people to buy cars manufactured in North America – in a move that could benefit Chinese companies.
Yet Trump has a complicated relationship with electric cars, in part because of his apparent fondness for Tesla chief executive Elon Musk. The former president told Bloomberg: “I have no objection to the electric vehicle…I think it’s great. Elon is fantastic.”
However, Trump added that “you can’t have 100 per cent of your cars electric…The cars don’t go far enough. They’re very, very expensive. They’re also heavy”.
Right-leaning news outlets have stated that Harris has backtracked in her historic support for electric vehicle mandates.
They quote a “factcheck” email sent out by the Harris campaign team, which was intended to preemptively respond to Vance visiting the car-producing state of Michigan. There, Harris’ team said the Republican would “undoubtedly lie” about her stance on electric vehicles.
The email stated that the Democratic candidate “does not support an electric vehicle mandate”, but does back the IRA which includes “ground-breaking subsidies and tax credits for electric vehicles”.
This story was published with permission from Carbon Brief.
