At the tail end of the hottest summer in recorded history, as wildfires tear through California and a hurricane heads toward Louisiana, both Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald J. Trump failed to say how they would fight climate change during their debate Tuesday night.
It was the final question posed during the 90 minute exchange, about an issue that moderator Linsey Davis of ABC News noted was “important for a number of Americans, in particular younger voters.”
The outcome of this presidential election could be critical to determining whether the United States, the world’s biggest historic source of the greenhouse gasses that are dangerously warming the planet, cuts its pollution enough to keep global warming within relatively safe limits. Scientists say the window for action is rapidly closing.
Ms. Harris acknowledged the problem, noting “the former president has said that climate change is a hoax and what we know is that it is very real.”
“We know that we can actually deal with this issue,” she said, but did not offer any specifics about how she would. Instead, Ms. Harris made a largely economic argument, noting that federal subsidies for clean energy, which includes wind and solar power, have created new jobs and spurred manufacturing.
And, in an unusual turn, Ms. Harris boasted that under the Biden administration, gas production has reached record highs. It’s a point that until very recently the administration had been reluctant to emphasize. The burning of fossil fuels is the main driver of climate change and at the United Nations climate talks last year, the United States joined nearly 200 other countries in a pledge to transition away from coal, oil and gas.
“We have invested a trillion dollars in a clean energy economy while we have also increased domestic gas production to historic levels,” Ms. Harris said on Tuesday.
Earlier in the debate, Ms. Harris suggested that developing more oil and gas was important to national security. “My position is that we have got to invest in diverse sources of energy, so we reduce our reliance on foreign oil,” she said. “We have had the largest increase in domestic oil production in history.”
The debate took place in Pennsylvania, a swing state that is pivotal to both candidates and is the second largest natural gas producer after Texas.
It was the second time in two debates that Mr. Trump, asked directly his plans for addressing the planetary threat, dodged the question entirely.
Instead, Mr. Trump repeatedly hammered Ms. Harris on fracking, and claimed that if she wins the White House, she would ban it and cripple fossil fuel production.
“She will never allow fracking in Pennsylvania if she won the election,” Mr. Trump said. “If she won the election, the day after that election, they’ll go back to destroying our country and oil will be dead, fossil fuel will be dead.”
Hydraulic fracturing, commonly called fracking, is the process of extracting gas by pumping water, sand and chemicals at high pressure into underground shale formations. Many environmentalists oppose fracking because it can pollute groundwater, and it also extends the use of fossil fuels at a time when scientists say nations must transition to cleaner forms of energy.
Ms. Harris supported a national fracking ban when she served in the U.S. Senate and ran for president in 2019. Once she became Joe Biden’s running mate in 2020, she disavowed that position.
“I will not ban fracking,” Ms. Harris said Tuesday.
Ms. Harris noted that she cast the tiebreaking vote on the Inflation Reduction Act, which is providing more than $370 billion for wind, solar and other clean energy projects. But she stressed that the legislation also “opened new leases for fracking.”
Mr. Trump is virtually incomprehensible on the topic of climate change. On Tuesday night, he said he was a “big fan” of solar power but then complained that solar farms take up too much space. He has railed against electric vehicles but then also said he was a “big fan” after receiving an endorsement from Elon Musk, the head of Tesla. Asked about global warming, the former president typically says the greater threat is “nuclear warming,” by which he seems to mean nuclear war.
He has pledged to “drill, baby, drill” and shred President Biden’s climate policies. He has promised to allow oil drilling across millions of acres of pristine tundra in Alaska, dismantle the Environmental Protection Agency, and withdraw the United States from the Paris Climate Agreement, as he did during his first term.
The Sunrise Movement, a youth-led climate group, expressed disappointment in Ms. Harris.
Stevie O’Hanlon, the spokeswoman for the group, said Ms. Harris “spent more time promoting fracking than laying out a bold vision for a clean energy future.”
Others said Ms. Harris still managed to present a clear choice.
“The stakes in this election were on full display tonight, with one candidate offering an ambitious vision for a clean energy future and the other spouting incoherent lies and conspiracy theories,” said Sarah Burton, the national political director for the Sierra Club, an environmental group.
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