The New York Climate Week/UNGA election update

Issue #7: Every week is Climate Week 

In this edition

• Spotlight on Ohio: Cleaner steel and welcoming communities 

• UN General Assembly and Climate Week (plus an invite)

• Renewables up, everywhere

The big picture

All of a sudden, small town Ohio is a microcosm for this election cycle. Oliver Milman in The Guardian looked at the steel plant in Middletown, Ohio, where vice presidential candidate JD Vance’s grandfather once worked. The steel plant is waiting for a $500 million Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) grant to replace coal burners with hydrogen, cutting air pollution and reducing carbon emissions by a million tons a year.

Though Biden is dolling out climate funds at a faster rate ($90 billion so far, per Reuters), it’s possible that a Trump administration could still scuttle that $500 million Middletown cash infusion if they win in November — Vance called the IRA “dumb” in 2022 and, along with Trump, has started referring to it as a “green energy scam.” Middletown residents are not so sure: “People thought the plant was in danger of leaving or closing, which would totally destroy the town… And now people think it’s not going anywhere,” one resident told The Guardian.

And less than an hour north of Middletown is Springfield, Ohio, which the entire world now knows as the place where the Trump campaign invented a racist scandal targeting Haitian migrants. Vox explains why this particular attack — which was followed by over 30 bomb threats in the community — follows a long history of racist treatment of Haitian people in the U.S., dating back to the Haitian revolution. Also read Haitian writer Edwidge Danticat in The Washington Post.

The United Nations is meeting in New York this week, with speeches from scores of world leaders, many expected to mention climate change. But uncertainty about the direction the U.S. election will take continues to hamper some of these climate discussions. Climate negotiators told Reuters that setting a new climate finance target, due at COP29 in Baku just six days after the U.S. election, is heavily dependent on the U.S. contribution, which depends on the election results. Neither Biden nor Harris have offered a climate finance number; African leaders are asking for $1.3 trillion a year, with debate swirling around which countries should contribute, and how much. 

Newsweek has more on this UNGA/Climate Week election dynamic. 

Triple Pundit had a comprehensive review of the Sept 10 presidential debate’s lack of substantive climate content. At least the ABC News anchors asked a question about climate change, which Trump essentially ignored. Harris used her minute to talk about extreme weather and climate displacement and touted Biden administration climate investments…. And then bragged about “increased domestic gas production to historic levels.” 

Amy Westervelt at Drilled discusses what a real climate policy from the Harris campaign could look like.

Conservative DC paper, The Washington Examiner, asks some really good questions about Trump’s oil and gas promises as well, pointing out that the president does not control these markets for the most part, that environmental watchdogs like the Center for Biological Diversity won 90% of its lawsuits against the first Trump administration and the permitting reform bottleneck. And Robinson Meyer in The New York Times has a take on how the first Trump administration set the U.S. back on EV manufacturing, and how a second term would hunt U.S. EV makers even more.

Also check out Atmos’ debate fact check.

What’s really happening across the U.S. and how is climate change shaping this critical election? These are the questions this newsletter will ask, fortnightly, through the election in November and beyond. So please subscribe and forward this email along if you find it useful.

Lots of renewables news of late. Reuters has a story asserting that solar growth is already insulated from election results: “The [inflation act] incentives are baked into projects for the next few years. I don’t think that Trump being elected would hurt the progress," says Ed Hirs, an Energy Fellow at the University of Houston. Rystad Energy tends to agree, and the latest report from Ember shows solar growth globally on track for another record-breaking year (Electrek) — 20 GW has been added in the U.S. from January to June of this year, 55% more than that same period last year. 

An annual U.S. Department of Energy jobs report shows that clean energy jobs, led by solar and wind jobs, grew twice as fast as the rest of energy jobs in 2023 (Bloomberg). The conservative-led states of Idaho and Texas, followed by New Mexico, led on clean energy growth.

U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm attributes the 4.2% clean energy job growth to investments in the bipartisan infrastructure law and the Inflation Reduction Act: “The data clearly show that clean energy means jobs – good jobs, union jobs, and jobs retained – in communities across the country as we race to dominate the global clean energy economy.” Bloomberg energy reporters discuss the IRA rollout and significance for the election in a recent episode of the Zero podcast, arguing that even if Harris is not talking about climate as much as she could — for political reasons — she is expected to continue building on Biden’s climate programs, much of which she could do without Congress.

An article from April, but still an unanswered question: Will Trump quit the World Bank?, as Project 2025 recommends (E&E News). The U.S. is the largest shareholder in the bank, which is undergoing major reform discussions as it is. Stephen Moore, a Project 2025 author and Heritage Foundation fellow, told E&E News/Politico that World Bank financing of climate solutions in developing countries is one of their concerns “when it would be more beneficial in some regions to build power plants that run on fossil fuels.” The World Bank has financed over $17 billion for fossil fuels since the Paris Agreement (Oil Change International).

Biden climate advisor John Podesta traveled to China recently and, according to reports, brought the two largest polluters closer on climate finance and possibly other issues on the table for COP29 in Baku (Reuters). What could be his final trip to China shows in part the power of climate negotiations to bring rival countries together, argues Kate Logan of The Asia Society Policy Institute in the South China Morning Post: “The greatest achievement by Podesta, therefore, would be an affirmation from his Chinese counterparts that climate progress can be enabled by both sides and that disagreements on thornier issues should not block making headway on the most existential ones.” 

Watch Podesta address questions about the Biden administration’s stance on fossil fuels and carbon taxes in a really good interview with Covering Climate Now (you can watch the rest of the mini-conference on the same YouTube channel).

Meanwhile, Chinese officials in the U.S. are having a hard time meeting with Trump campaign staff, according to the FT. A promised tariff increase of 100% against Chinese EVs went into effect this month under Biden (FT), with Trump promising to raise the levy even higher if elected. An Italian academic, reflecting on Europe’s protectionism against Chinese cars, says this tariff war will slow the electric transition and make it more expensive, though sales of Chinese cars continue to accelerate in Europe. 

Finally, the U.S. Department of Justice’s special prosecutor Jack Smith has filed a new indictment in Trump's federal election interference trial, seeking to preserve the major charges in light of the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent immunity ruling for the former president. The case, one of four Trump felony trials underway, alleges a conspiracy to overturn the results of the 2020 election. (Read the full indictment via Politico.)

Information integrity (disinfo)

FWIW has six online trends to watch, including the fact that — yes — X (Twitter) still exists and is still very relevant for politics and political journalism, and Facebook and Meta have become even less relevant for politics and political journalism since pulling back from political advertising and hidden political content.

The Toronto Star on the surprising — or not, depending on your vantage — role of Canadian YouTubers in the $10 million Russian election influence scheme that was recently shut down by the U.S. Justice Department. 

Media Matters discusses how Fox News is driving the election narrative around fracking, particularly in Pennsylvania, when it’s not even clear how much Pennsylvania voters want or benefit from the highly polluting practice. 

And check out Mother Jones on the somewhat successful far-right push back on disinformation research itself: “At the same time fighting disinformation has become a political battleground, it has also shown to be a problem on which Big Tech has been all too eager to throw in the towel.”

Voters’ climate game (polling) 

NBC has a roundup of the latest polling, showing a continuing tight race with Harris’ numbers continuing to creep ahead in battleground states.

An August 29 Quinnipiac poll showed Trump with an 18-point advantage among men and Harris a 21-point advantage among women. But even more interesting, 59% said they trust Harris more on climate change, while 34% trust Trump.  

Another recent poll had Trump leading Harris among veterans (51%-41%), active-duty service members (49%-44%), and their families (47%-45%). The Change Research for Veterans for Responsible Leadership poll was first reported by Semafor. They asked the same groups to imagine being a team member in combat with the former president. Fifty-five percent of participants agreed Trump would “only look out for himself,” while 54% of participants said “he’d talk a big game but not do much” (The Hill).

And a Reuters/IPSOS poll from late August found that Latino voters favor Harris’ climate stance over Trump’s by 23 points, but favor Trump on immigration by 5 points.

On endorsements: Harris gets Scientific American… and one particular famous singer. Trump nabbed Nicky Jam, and still has Hulk Hogan and Elon Musk on his side. The Teamsters are sitting it out (Vox).

Trailing thoughts

Question for you: As you watch American politics unfold this year, what is the climate issue that holds the highest stakes for you? Are you worried about extreme weather and our ability to rebound? Are you an EV or electric bus person? Are you worried about U.S. climate finance commitments? Are you just worried? Let us know! 

Why stakes? We are calling this newsletter Climate Stakes U.S. because the stakes are, indeed, too high. NYU journalism professor Jay Rosen has urged reporters to consider the stakes of elections, and not just the odds of winning them, and we aim to do that for the climate. As the year develops, we will look for high stakes moments and show where they do — or where they should — overlap with American politics. 

GSCC is a global network of communications professionals in the field of climate and energy. The views expressed in quotes in this newsletter are those of the people making the comments and not necessarily those of GSCC, and they are presented as a service in the interest of informing the public. GSCC does not endorse candidates.

This edition was written by Nate.