Kamala Harris could set ‘new high bar for climate ambition’, advocates say

Kamala Harris has a strong record on the environment that will provide a vivid contrast with Donald Trump, who has vowed to rescind climate change policies should he return to the White House, according to green advocates who have welcomed the prospect of a Harris presidency.

“We are confident that she is ready to carry forward President Biden’s historic legacy and set a new high bar for climate ambition in America,” said Lena Moffitt, executive director of Evergreen, one of a raft of green groups, including Sierra Club, League of Conservation Voters Action Fund and the NRDC Action Fund that have now endorsed the leading contender for the Democratic nomination.

Harris, as vice-president, cast the tie-breaking vote to pass Joe Biden’s landmark legislation, the Inflation Reduction Act, which unleashes hundreds of billions of dollars into building clean energy and electric car capacity. Biden, in his Sunday letter confirming he will drop his bid to be re-elected president, called the bill “the most significant climate legislation in the history of the world”.

Extolling this record, faced by an opponent who dismisses a climate crisis that is of growing concern to American voters amid a scorchingly hot summer, will be a key task for Harris should she gain the Democratic nomination. “President Harris would kick ass against Trump,” said Gina McCarthy, Biden’s former chief climate adviser.

“She has spent her whole life committed to justice, fighting for the underdog, and making sure that no one is above the law. She will fight every day for all Americans to have access to clean air, clean water and a healthy environment.”

Harris’s work on environmental issues stretches back to the early stages of her career two decades ago, when she created one of the US’s first environmental justice units as San Francisco’s district attorney. Later, as attorney general of California, Harris secured multimillion-dollar settlements from Volkswagen for rigging vehicles with emissions-cheating software and from the oil firms Phillips 66 and ConocoPhillips for environmental violations.

She once claimed, incorrectly, that she also sued ExxonMobil, although she did investigate the company over its climate change disclosures. As a US senator, Harris further built her climate credentials by becoming a co-sponsor of the Green New Deal, a resolution that called for the US to swiftly transition to 100% clean energy while providing well-paying jobs and healthcare assurances.

When Harris ran for the Democratic presidential primary in 2019, she promoted a green agenda far more ambitious than Biden’s, calling for a carbon tax, a ban on fracking for oil and gas on public lands and a $10tn investment to help combat global heating.

While this turned into little more than a wishlist, Harris became a champion of Biden’s climate bill once she became vice-president. She represented the US in Biden’s stead at last year’s Cop28 UN climate summit in Dubai where she took a thinly veiled swipe at Trump, who has called climate change a “hoax” and promised to “drill, baby, drill” for oil and gas if elected again.

“Continued progress will not be possible without a fight,” Harris told assembled world leaders at the Cop28 talks. “Our action collectively, or worse, our inaction will impact billions of people for decades to come.

“Around the world, there are those who seek to slow or stop our progress. Leaders who deny climate science, delay climate action and spread misinformation. Corporations that greenwash their climate inaction and lobby for billions of dollars in fossil fuel subsidies.”

Harris no longer mentions the Green New Deal – which has been roundly vilified by conservatives – but environmental groups see an instinctive ally in the vice-president, should she secure the nomination and beat Trump.

Climate groups who said just last week they questioned Biden’s ability to win in November are now starting to swing behind Harris. “We’re ready to go full steam ahead talking with young people about the stakes of this election and what a second Trump presidency would mean for our generation,” said Aru Shiney-Ajay, executive director of Sunrise, the youth-led climate group.