The two US presidential candidates have very different approaches to how the US should tackle climate change.
With the US elections scheduled for November, the superpower’s approach to climate change hangs in the balance.
Following a summer with four of the hottest days ever measured, presidential candidates Kamala Harris and Donald Trump have starkly different visions on how to address a changing climate while ensuring a reliable energy supply.
While Harris has not yet laid out a detailed plan for climate action, Trump has made clear that he intends to repeal many of the Biden administration’s “kamikazee climate regulations”.
The last Trump administration saw attempts to roll back more than 100 environmental protections. Allies of the former president say that with a conserivative-aligned judicial system – including the supreme court – and people loyal to him installed throughout the government, it would be easier for Trump to dismantle these rules this time around.
With the world falling “miles short” of global emissions goals and heading for 3.1Β°C of warming this century, the UN has warned that “climate crunch time is here”.
Whoever takes the White House will determine what role the US takes as a major emitter in this critical time for the climate crisis.
Trump vs Harris: Where they stand on the climate crisis
During her acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention, Harris briefly mentioned climate change as she outlined βfundamental freedomsβ at stake in the election.
This included βthe freedom to breathe clean air and drink clean water and live free from the pollution that fuels the climate crisisβ.
As a senator from California, she was an early sponsor of the Green New Deal, a sweeping series of proposals meant to swiftly move the United States to fully green energy that is championed by the partyβs most progressive wing.
Her campaign has also undescored the importance of US leadership in climate action and economic growth through sustainable initatives.
Former President Trump, meanwhile, led chants of βdrill, baby, drillβ and pledged to dismantle the Biden administrationβs βgreen new scamβ in his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention. He has vowed to boost production of fossil fuels such as oil, natural gas and coal and repeal key parts of the 2022 climate law.
βWe have more liquid gold under our feet than any other country by far,β Trump said at the convention. βWe are a nation that has the opportunity to make an absolute fortune with its energy.β
As Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton hit the US causing death and destruction, scientists warned that climate change had likely fueled these powerful storms. In their wake, Trump once again dismissed climate change as “one of the great scams of all time”.
Harris: βClimate championβ or backer of unfair regulations?
Environmental groups, which largely back Harris, call her a βproven climate championβ who will take on Big Oil and build on Biden’s climate legacy, including policies that boost electric vehicles and limit planet-warming pollution from coal-fired power plants.
“We wonβt go back to a climate denier in the Oval Office,” said Lena Moffitt, executive director of Evergreen Action.
Republicans counter that Biden and Harris have spent four years adopting βpunishing regulationsβ that target American energy while lavishing generous tax credits for electric vehicles and other green priorities that cost taxpayers billions of dollars.
βThis onslaught of overreaching and outrageous climate rules will shut down power plants and increase energy costs for families across the country,” said Senator John Barrasso from Wyoming. “Republicans will work to stop them and fight for solutions that protect our air and water and allow our economy to grow.β
Democrats have a clear edge on the issue. More than half of US adults say they trust Harris βa lotβ or βsomeβ when it comes to addressing climate change, according to an Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll conducted in July.
About seven in 10 say they have βnot muchβ trust in Trump or βnone at allβ when it comes to climate. Fewer than half say they lack trust in Harris.
Where do Trump and Harris stand on fracking and offshore drilling?
Harris said during her short-lived 2020 presidential campaign that she opposed offshore drilling for oil and hydraulic fracturing, an oil and gas extraction process better known as fracking.
But her campaign has clarified that she no longer supports a ban on fracking, a common drilling practice crucial to the economy in Pennsylvania, a key swing state and the nationβs second-largest producer of natural gas.
βAs vice president, I did not ban fracking. As president, I will not ban fracking,” Harris told CNN on Thursday in her first major television interview as the nominee. “We can grow… a thriving clean energy economy without banning fracking.”
Kevin Book, managing director at ClearView Energy Partners, a Washington research firm, said Harrisβ evolving views show she is βtrying to balance climate voters and industry supporters,β³ even as her campaign takes βan adversarial stanceβ³ with the oil and gas industry overall.
Harris and Democrats have cited new rules – authorised by the climate law – to increase royalties that oil and gas companies pay to drill or mine on public lands. She also has supported efforts to clean up old drilling sites and cap abandoned wells that often spew methane and other pollutants.
Trump, who pushed to roll back scores of environmental laws as president, says his goal is for the US to have the cheapest energy and electricity in the world. Heβd increase oil drilling on public lands, offer tax breaks to oil, gas and coal producers and speed approval of natural gas pipelines.
His platform aims for the US to become “energy independent, and even dominant again”.
Trump and Harris on electric vehicles
Trump has frequently criticised tough new vehicle emissions rules imposed by Biden, incorrectly labelling them an electric vehicle βmandateβ³.
Environmental Protection Agency rules issued this spring target tailpipe emissions from cars and trucks and encourage but do not require sales of new EVs to meet the new standards.
Trump has said EV manufacturing will destroy jobs in the auto industry. In recent months, however, he has softened his rhetoric, saying heβs for βa very small sliceβ of cars being electric.
The change comes after Tesla CEO Elon Musk βendorsed me very stronglyβ, Trump said at an August rally in Atlanta. Even so, industry officials expect Trump to roll back Bidenβs EV push and attempt to repeal tax incentives that Trump claims benefit China.
Harris has not announced an EV plan but has strongly supported EVs as vice president. At a 2022 event in Seattle, she celebrated roughly $1 billion (β¬926 million) in federal grants to purchase about 2,500 ‘clean’ school buses. As many as 25 million children ride the familiar yellow buses each school day, and they will have a healthier future with a cleaner fleet, Harris said.
The grants and other federal climate programs not only are aimed at βsaving our children, but for them, saving our planetβ³, she said.
The impact of climate spending on US jobs
As vice president, Harris cast the tie-breaking vote on the Inflation Reduction Act, President Joe Bidenβs landmark climate law that was approved with only Democratic support.
Harris has focused on implementing the $1 trillion (β¬904t) bipartisan infrastructure law passed in 2021, as well as climate provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act, which provided nearly $375 billion (β¬339b) in financial incentives for electric cars and clean energy projects.
Under Biden and Harris, US manufacturers created more than 250,000 energy jobs last year, the Energy Department said, with clean energy accounting for more than half of those jobs. βAmerica is more energy secure than ever before with the highest domestic energy production on record,” the Harris campaign said.
Trump and his running mate, Ohio Senator JD Vance, deride climate spending as a “money grab” for environmental groups and say it will ship Americans’ jobs to China and other countries while increasing energy prices at home.
βKamala Harris cares more about climate change than about inflation,β Vance wrote in an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal.
In September when he unvieled parts of his economic policy platform, Trump said his plan will “terminate the Green New Deal, which I call the Green New Scam, and rescind all unspent funds under the misnamed Inflation Reduction Act”.
Trump promises to end wind subsidies included in the climate law and eliminate regulations imposed and proposed by the Biden administration to increase the energy efficiency of lightbulbs, stoves, dishwashers and shower heads.
Trump and Harris on the Paris Agreement
Trump, who has cast climate change as a βhoax”, withdrew the US from the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement. He has pledged to do so again during a second term as President, calling the global plan to reduce carbon emissions unenforceable and a gift to China and other big polluters.
He recently called the agreement a “rip off” and there have been some suggestions Trump may even look to remove the US from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) treaty which underpins the agreement.
This would prevent the country from participating in future international climate change negotiations.
The US returned to the Paris Agreement soon after Biden took office in 2021 and Harris has called the pact crucial to address climate change and protect βour childrenβs futureβ³.
Where do Trump and Harris stand on LNG?
After approving numerous projects to export liquefied natural gas, or LNG, the Biden administration in January paused consideration of new natural gas export terminals. The delay allows officials to review the economic and climate impacts of natural gas, a fossil fuel that emits methane, a potent greenhouse gas.
The decision aligned the Democratic president with environmentalists who fear the recent increase in LNG exports is locking in potentially catastrophic planet-warming emissions even as Biden has pledged to cut climate pollution in half by 2030.
Trump has said he would approve terminals βon my very first day backβ in office.
Harris has not outlined plans for LNG exports, but analysts expect her to impose tough climate standards on export projects as part of her larger stance against large oil and gas companies.
