The Harris-Walz waltz prompts relief among climate activists (2024)

As the wheels wobbled and then fell from the Biden campaign last month, a palpable sense of dread took hold among the legions of climate scientists, analysts and activists around the world.

The ageing president might have failed to hold the confidence of the Democratic Party as it barrelled towards an election, but his administration had won acclaim for the effectiveness of its climate policies.

At the heart of Biden’s climate program was the Inflation Reduction Act, which included $A1.2 trillion in support of various green energy and efficiency programs across the nation.

This year alone, IRA funding has helped catalyse a $US1.4 billion ($2.12 billion) investment by Toyota to build a new SUV at its Indiana plant and a $US294 million solar technology investment for North Carolina; and a $US400 million hydrogen manufacturing plant announced for Virginia.

‘I care about the environment not because I have any particular desire to hug a tree, but I have a strong desire to hug a healthy baby.’

Kamala Harris

Tellingly, in an effort to “Republican proof” the policy, much of the subsidy is directed towards states held by GOP governors.

As a result of the Biden administration’s efforts, the United States is now on track to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 50 to 52 per cent by 2030 based on 2005 levels. It has also spurred a “virtuous circle” of international competition. The European Union and other countries are being compelled to ramp up their spending on green tech in order to compete for technology and talent for the energy transition.

The Biden administration managed to largely quarantine climate co-operation from its deepening fissure with China, ensuring that the world’s two largest greenhouse gas emitters remain active in the Paris climate treaty.

By contrast, the Republican Party under Donald Trump remains openly antagonistic to climate action.

Having pulled the US out of the Paris Agreement during his first term, Trump has made it clear during this campaign that he would do so again if re-elected.

Under the slogan “drill, baby, drill”, he has voiced plans to strip back regulations on fracking and vehicle emissions and to reassert what he calls US energy dominance by rapidly expanding the fossil-fuel industry in order to “unleash energy dominance”.

With the announcement that Tim Walz has joined Vice President Kamala Harris on the Democratic ticket, climate activists are considering how an administration led by the pair might serve climate action.

So far, the mood is celebratory.

Walz has been a champion for climate action as governor of Minnesota, passing more than 40 initiatives to aid his state’s decarbonisation. In the face of Republican opposition, he last year signed a bill to force utilities to provide 100 per cent carbon-free power by 2040, and he backed federal fuel-efficiency mandates.

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“Tim Walz is an excellent choice for vice president,” said Stevie O’Hanlon, communications director of the Sunrise Movement, a youth climate action group.

“This decision shows that Kamala Harris is taking seriously what is needed to rebuild the 2020 Biden-Harris coalition ahead of November.

“As governor, Tim Walz has made huge strides to address the climate crisis. He has done this by pitching climate action as a way to make people’s everyday lives better, create good-paying green jobs, and invest in making communities stronger. That is a winning message, and one the Democratic ticket should put at the forefront of their agenda. ”

But Walz is no environmental cleanskin. In 2021, he was attacked by green protesters for backing the construction of a controversial oil pipeline.

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“His lack of action to stop the Line 3 pipeline shows a troubling deference to fossil-fuel interests,” Rees said in a statement reported by Politico.

Harris has voiced her ongoing support for the Green New Deal, as the IRA is also known, and she can point back to her own environmental record independent of Biden’s.

In 2015, while serving as California’s attorney-general, Harris backed the prosecution of companies responsible for a Santa Barbara oil spill, extracting millions in fines, though she pragmatically softened her tone on climate issues when Europe faced an energy crunch after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

In an interview with Inside Climate News, Harris, like Walz, sought to cast climate policy not as a niche area, but as a key economic concern of the broader electorate.

“I care about the environment not because I have any particular desire to hug a tree, but [because] I have a strong desire to hug a healthy baby.”

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