With President Joe Biden’s shaky performance at the first presidential debate in late June and subsequent insistence on his electoral fitness fueling an increasingly public divide among Democratic leaders and major donors, Americans across the country are waiting to see whether he can and will continue in the race. Whatever one’s opinion of Biden, the Democratic Party’s recent tailspin and crisis of confidence around their current candidate should concern Americans across party lines.
The potential for a presidency that will combat the accelerating climate crisis hinges on Democrats cleaning up their act.
If Democrats fail to rally the nation behind Biden or replace him with a viable alternative, they’ll not only hand the election to Trump; they’ll condemn the country to an onslaught of right-wing climate denialism and delay, spelling chaos for present and future Americans alike. This is a reality that we—and our planet—simply can’t afford.
As a climate activist, I’ve already seen that the gap between necessary climate action and U.S. policy is seismic. The world is careening past 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming and yet, as of November 2023, the Climate Action Tracker ranked the United States as overall insufficient in its climate policies and action, even when accounting for the promised progress of Biden’s signature Inflation Reduction Act. While the Act is certainly a landmark achievement, providing an unprecedented $370 billion of funding for clean energy and environmental justice initiatives, it is far from a panacea. And almost two years after its passage, the country is not implementing new renewable projects at the pace needed to meet anticipated emissions reduction targets.
Meanwhile, U.S.-based oil companies ExxonMobil, Petrobras, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, and Shell are collectively planning to spend $68 million a day from now through 2030 exploiting oil and gas projects that are fundamentally incompatible with limiting warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius.
We know all too well that another Trump presidency would turn the present gap on U.S. climate action into a vast chasm with irreversible consequences. While in office, Trump slashed environmental regulations; appointed Supreme Court justices that have critically weakened environmental regulatory powers; and pulled the United States out of the historic Paris Agreement. If elected to a second term, Trump has said that he would recklessly withdraw the U.S. from the accord for a second time. His plan to gut the civil service would also dramatically undercut regulatory agencies’ ability to protect the environment. Key environmental regulations, along with much of the Environmental Protection Agency, would again be on the chopping block.
To stop this climate chaos, the Democrats must put forward a candidate who will champion a bold climate agenda. That agenda includes rapidly phasing out the nation’s dependence on fossil fuels and ushering in a just renewable energy transition with good union jobs—basically, a Green New Deal.
Rumored replacements for Biden include political figures with various climate bona fides. This includes California Governor Gavin Newsom, who has supercharged the state’s climate policy and helped turn California into a national climate leader, and Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, who signed off on a huge clean energy package in a Midwestern state not conventionally known for climate action. Current Vice President Kamala Harris, who has been characterized as the most obvious Biden successor, has also been vocal about environmental injustice and the climate crisis.
In 2020, young people, particularly young people of color, turned out in historic numbers and in pivotal swing states to vote Biden into the White House. Biden’s promises of climate action played a big role in their mobilization. Today, the Biden campaign and the Democratic Party are at grave risk of losing many of these voters.
While climate change is far from the only policy issue that young Americans and Americans more broadly are looking to as they prepare to cast votes—or withhold them—this November, it can be a deeply motivating one. Whether Democrats realize it or not, the 2024 election is an election for our planet’s future, which requires a candidate fit for the task of turning the United States into a climate leader.
With 2024 promising yet another year of record temperature extremes, the Democratic Party needs to get its act together. Given the global impact of U.S. climate policy, far more than just the health of American democracy depends on it. Will Democrats put people and the planet, or party politics and infighting, first?
This column was produced for Progressive Perspectives, a project of The Progressive magazine, and distributed by Tribune News Service.