With each year seemingly bringing new record-breaking high temperatures across the globe and devastating climate-induced natural disasters, climate change is naturally at the top of mind for voters in the 2024 U.S. presidential election. So, where do nominees Kamala Harris and Donald Trump stand on the issue?
As with many other issues throughout this election cycle, the two candidates remain starkly divided on climate change.
As vice president for the Democratic administration, Harris supported President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, a sweeping climate bill that included provisions for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and investing in clean energy technology. When she was a U.S. senator for California, Harris was an early proponent of the original Green New Deal, a progressive plan that advocated for replacing the American economy’s reliance on fossil fuels with renewable energy resources, such as wind power and solar energy.
In contrast, Trump has slammed the Green New Deal as the “green new scam.” The Republican nominee has instead urged for the continued production of fossil fuel resources such as oil and coal. Indeed, during his time as president, Trump withdrew the United States from the Paris Climate Agreement and rolled back more than 100 environmental rules.
Ahead, we break down everything voters should know about the candidates’ positions on climate change.
Kamala Harris
Since entering public office, Harris has maintained her belief that climate change is an “existential threat,” keeping environmental policies as one of the key issues on her agenda.
While serving as vice president under the Biden administration, Harris delivered the tie-breaking vote on the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, a landmark climate law that stipulates $369 billion for clean energy investments and the reduction of greenhouse gases, making it the largest federal spending law on climate in U.S. history. (Experts have estimated that implementation of the IRA may reduce greenhouse gas emissions anywhere between 43 and 48 percent below 2005 levels by 2035.)
Subsequently, Harris used her platform as vice president to tout the advantages of the IRA to American voters, advocated for $20 billion to go toward the Environmental Protection Agency’s Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, and urged world leaders to accelerate their clean energy and climate initiatives at the COP28 climate change conference in Dubai.
During her first presidential campaign in 2019, Harris introduced an ambitious climate change plan that promised a whopping $10 trillion to establish a carbon-neutral economy by 2045. The proposal featured yearly benchmarks that targeted different sectors, from reaching 100 percent carbon-neutral electricity by 2030 to making 100 percent of cars zero-emission by 2035.
Kamala Harris speaks at the COP28 climate conference last December.
While Harris previously vocalized her opposition against fracking—a process of extracting natural gas from the earth that can lead to water contamination and air pollution—she has changed her tune as the 2024 Democratic presidential nominee, likely in attempt to reach voters in key battleground states like Pennsylvania, which is a major producer of natural gas. “We have set goals for the United States of America and by extension, the globe, around when we should meet certain standards for reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, as an example. That value has not changed,” Harris said in an August 2024 interview with CNN. “What I have seen is that we can grow and we can increase a thriving clean energy economy without banning fracking.”
She continued to defend climate change policies during her time as California’s attorney general from 2011 to 2017. At the time, she used her office to investigate ExxonMobil for misleading the public on the risks associated with climate change, prosecuted Plains All-American Pipeline for a 2015 oil spill that affected California’s coastline, and won an $86 million settlement from Volkswagen for allegedly cheating on diesel emissions tests. While serving as San Francisco’s district attorney from 2004 to 2011, Harris established an environmental justice unit and prosecuted companies accused of violating hazardous waste laws.
Harris has earned endorsements from major environmental organizations, from the Green New Deal Network to the Sunrise Movement, as well as over 80 Nobel Prize laureates who work in the fields of physics, chemistry, economics, and medicine.
In summary, Kamala Harris:
- Has a long track record of advocating for climate change policies.
- Supports the Inflation Reduction Act, the largest federal spending climate law ever passed in U.S. history.
- Previously proposed a $10 trillion plan on the development of a carbon-neutral economy during her initial bid for presidency in 2019.
- Reversed her stance on fracking, with the vice president now vowing that she will not ban the extractive process if elected to the White House.
- Has investigated in and prosecuted companies for violating environmental laws during her time as California’s attorney general and San Francisco’s district attorney.
- Secured endorsements from key environmental organizations, scientists, and experts.
Related StoriesDonald Trump
Trump has repeatedly denied the risks and threats of manmade global warming, something that experts and scientists from across the globe have long agreed upon. On multiple occasions, he has referred to climate change as a “hoax,” and last year, he falsely claimed that “the ocean is going to go down 100th of an inch within the next 400 years.” He added, “That’s not our problem. Our problem is nuclear warming.” (The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has reported that the global sea level is rising at an alarming eighth of an inch per year, with U.S. coastal communities in particular expected to receive anywhere from a 10- to 12-inch increase between 2020 and 2050.)
Trump has vowed to repeal parts of the IRA, pledging to take back any unspent funds provided under the climate legislation should he win this year’s election. While he hasn’t specified which programs he would potentially target, he joins other congressional Republicans in criticizing the law for its tax increases and spending—though some of the party’s house representatives have since urged their leaders to not gut the law’s clean energy tax credits.
During his time in the Oval Office, Trump gutted major climate change policies and rolled back more than 100 environmental rules, including rules that involved water pollution, air pollution, toxic substances, and carbon dioxide emissions.
Donald Trump at a recent campaign rally in Las Vegas
As president, he also pulled the United States from the Paris Agreement, an international treaty adopted by world leaders in 2016 in order to limit global warming to just 1.5 degrees Celsius by the end of this century. “The Paris Climate Accord is simply the latest example of Washington entering into an agreement that disadvantages the United States to the exclusive benefit of other countries, leaving American workers—who I love—and taxpayers to absorb the cost in terms of lost jobs, lower wages, shuttered factories, and vastly diminished economic production,” Trump said in a statement at the time.
A 2018 Associated Press analysis found that nearly half Trump’s appointees for the EPA had ties to industries with reputations for polluting or creating toxic sites, and that a third of the EPA hires had worked as lobbyists or lawyers for chemical manufacturers or fossil fuel producing companies. Trump anointed Scott Pruitt, an attorney who has been vocally skeptical of climate change, to head the EPA. After Pruitt resigned due to an ethics and management scandal, Trump nominated Interior Secretary and fellow climate change skeptic Ryan Zinke for the job. Later, when Zinke too resigned in the wake of a corruption scandal, Trump backed David Bernhardt, a former oil and gas lobbyist, for the position.
In summary, Donald Trump:
- Denies the risks and threats associated with climate change.
- Falsely claimed that the sea level is “going to go down 100th of an inch within the next 400 years.”
- Wants to roll back parts of the Inflation Reduction Act, though he has yet to specific which parts of the law he wants to target.
- Gutted major climate and environmental policies under his administration.
- Withdrew the U.S. from the Paris Agreement.
- Filled the EPA with fossil fuel lobbyists and individuals who have publicly expressed skepticism over the scientific consensus that climate change has been fueled by human activity.