Climate advocates quickly back Walz

Issue #5: Veep stakes

In this edition

• Kamala Harris VP pick; climate groups react

• Climate change deniers a quarter of U.S. Congress

• Yellen/Podesta: $3 trillion needed globally for climate change

The big picture

In the few weeks since we sent the last Climate Stakes newsletter, President Joe Biden dropped out, Vice President Kamala Harris became the presumptive nominee sparking a significant new wave of support across the country, and the Harris campaign engineered a national running mate speculation game ending with Tim Walz, the governor of Minnesota, named just today.

Walz, 60, is a former high school geography teacher who was elected to Congress in 2006 and served six terms. According to the New York Times, he became very concerned with climate impacts when he was elected governor in 2018, including drought affecting farmers in the Midwest, wildfire smoke, and thinner ice reducing the ice fishing season. Minnesota has enacted its own ambitious climate policies, independent of the federal government, including state goals for the power sector and a mini-Inflation Reduction Act, to fund some in-state clean energy projects. 

On the other hand, according to Semafor, Walz also greenlit the controversial Line 3 oil pipeline (The Mac) and supported a hydrogen production project backed by Marathon Petroleum and the pipeline company TC Energy. He voted to approve the Keystone XL Pipeline in 2015, as a congressman.

Still, climate groups were quick to back Walz (ABC News) from the Natural Resources Defense Council to the Sunrise Movement, which had taken a few days (AFRO) to endorse Harris. Former White House climate advisor Gina McCarthy said he can’t be bought by fossil fuel companies: “He gets that climate action isn't about politics, it's about protecting our small towns and cities. It's about creating safer and healthier communities for our kids and grandkids to grow up in.”

Sunrise Movement activists last week rallied at the Democratic National Committee headquarters in DC urging Harris to hold fossil fuel companies accountable, along with other demands. And nine climate protesters were arrested outside of GOP Vice Presidential candidate and Ohio Senator JD Vance’s office last week after 150 young people from Sunrise occupied the office to highlight $300,000 in campaign funding from oil and gas-linked PACs (The Hill).

Politico reviewed what Trump could or could not do to unwind Biden’s climate legacy, including the fact that less than 17% of Biden’s $1.1 trillion in climate investments has been spent so far; spending that Trump could divert or slow dramatically. Trump could also rewrite tax rules for clean energy incentives, curtail $200 billion in energy transition loans, revise agency regulations, and find other ways to stall funding from going out the door.

Real Clear Energy looked at the Biden climate policies that a Trump administration may want to continue. These include development of nuclear energy, manufacturing incentives in red states, and “clearing red tape for clean energy deployment.”

Relatedly, the Biden administration is trying to speed Inflation Reduction Act spending in the short time it has left. The U.S. is working with climate allies (Politico), including the World Bank (The Guardian) and China, to accelerate some climate finance this year, to cement $1 billion in methane reductions, and to assure investors that clean energy industries are secure in the U.S. despite the consequential election in November.

But, according to Reuters, some European companies are abandoning U.S. expansion plans over election fears, including large German solar firm SMA Solar, wind giant Orsted, and multiple hydrogen producers. And the EU is planning a carrot and stick approach with a possible second Trump administration — offering to buy more U.S. products, but also playing hard ball with any new Trump tariffs (FT). In 2018, Brussels taxed US bourbon, Harleys, and power boats in retaliation for Trump steel and aluminum tariffs. 

Finally, Oliver Milman and Dharna Noor in The Guardian look at the nearly 25% of Congress members who have denied climate change in some respect, while only about 11% of the American public dismisses climate science, according to Yale University’s program on Climate Change Communication.

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

Having taken advantage of tax credits and incentives in the Inflation Reduction Act, clean energy investors are getting nervous about the election and consequences for their investments. In an E&E News story from July, the research director at Wood Mackenzie’s energy transition group David Brown said, “Emerging technologies require policy clarity, policy security, and you’re not seeing that right now.”

Wood Mackenzie projects that $1 trillion in energy investments are on the line in this election: from a partial repeal of some parts of the IRA and also the U.S. abandoning its 2035 Net Zero target for the power sector, from softer emissions goals at the Environmental Protection Agency, and tax regulations that favor fossil fuel companies, including blue hydrogen. 

Meanwhile, analysts like Todd Tucker at The Roosevelt Institute are trying to glean how Harris would expand on the Biden green industrial policy (neé Twitter, thread). 

Harris got some credit for the workplace heat rules that Biden announced at the start of this record-breaking summer. According to E&E News, United Farm Workers President Teresa Romero credits Harris with advancing popular heat protections for outdoor workers with almost unprecedented speed through the White House’s bureaucratic review process.

The article talks about strong Harris support from pro-climate unions, but also her history of listening to construction and oil refinery workers in California and the younger and more diverse makeup of California unions.

Economist Adam Tooze weighed in this week on the climate stakes of the election with a cautionary tone: "What is at stake in this election is the choice between more or less gradual decarbonization paths. I say that advisedly, because what all of the modeling also shows is that no policy on offer in the 2024 election puts the United States anywhere near a path to full decarbonization by 2050."

Tooze asks a provocative question: If this election is really about saving democracy in the U.S., then which policies will actually get us to transition by 2050 and how can democratic politics get us there?

Members of the now lame-duck Biden administration are taking a wider shot at climate finance goals, with U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen telling the G20 finance ministers in Belem, Brazil that the world needs $3 trillion a year through 2050 to transition to a low-carbon economy, calling it the “biggest economic opportunity of the 21st Century” (Reuters). 

And Biden senior climate advisor John Podesta’s climate and trade taskforce is looking at carbon pricing on imports, similar to the EU’s CBAM (FT). The taskforce is hosting a bipartisan conversation on preventing or reducing highly polluting imports in favor of lower carbon domestic goods: “Republican Senator Bill Cassidy and Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse are among those calling for a carbon tariff that allows the US to take advantage of its less carbon-intensive goods while making foreign producers pay for their dirtier products.”

Information integrity (disinfo)

Here’s a long AP report on Russian influence and other election-related disinformation in the U.S. election cycle: “The disinformation can focus on the candidates or voting, or on issues that are already the subject of debates in the U.S., such as immigration, crime or the war in Gaza.”

Elon Musk’s America PAC — as well as the platform he controls — is being used to push the Trump candidacy and Musk ads across the internet are collecting voter data that is turned over to the Trump campaign, CNBC reported. In swing states, according to the report, the PAC is offering help with voter registration, but just collecting personal information and then splashing a thank you screen.

“I’d say that it is somewhat concerning that the owner of one of the most important social media platforms is openly partisan (rooting for one of the candidates) and is using his platform ... as a vehicle for pursuing his openly partisan ends,” said Matthew Baum, a professor at the Harvard Kennedy School, whose research includes studying misinformation. 

Trump allies are targeting academics, nonprofits and tech initiatives that combat disinformation, including through surveillance, Congressional hearings, and lawsuits (Washington Post). “I worry that we’re going to head into the election with a blindfold over our eyes, without data to understand what political advertising, disinformation and foreign influence looked like,” said Alex Abdo, litigation director of the Knight First Amendment Institute.

Voters’ climate game (polling) 

Polling was slow to register the Democratic candidate swap, but new polls this week show Harris pulling ahead, including in a few swing states. The latest Bloomberg/Morning Consult poll showed Harris leading Trump in Michigan, Nevada, Arizona, and Wisconsin; Trump ahead in Pennsylvania and North Carolina; and a tie in Georgia (The Hill). The Princeton Election Consortium model shows a Trump Electoral College vote, but a strong surge from Harris. Even polling pundit Nate Silver showed Harris pulling ahead (1.4% margin, 51% chance of winning the Electoral College) in his latest poll average. 

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.