Harris vs. Trump on climate change: Where they stand on the issue
Harris vs. Trump on climate change: Where they stand on the issue The Washington Post
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Stances on Important Issues: Kamala Harris and Donald Trump
We’re collecting Vice President Kamala Harris’s and former president Donald Trump’s stances on the most important issues including abortion, economic policy, immigration and more.
Causes of climate change
Q: Do you believe that climate change is largely driven by human activity, including the burning of fossil fuels? If not, is there a different cause you would cite?
Democrat
A: Harris calls climate change an existential threat and says the United States needs to act urgently to address it. As a presidential candidate in 2019, she released a $10 trillion climate plan that calls for investing in renewable energy, holding polluters accountable, helping communities affected by climate change and protecting natural resources. As California attorney general, she prosecuted oil companies for environmental violations. As vice president, she was the tie-breaking vote in the Senate for the Inflation Reduction Act, which provided about $370 billion to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 40 percent below their 2005 levels by the end of this decade.
Republican
A: Trump believes human activity is just one cause of climate change, not necessarily the dominant factor. Pressed in a 2020 debate about whether human pollution contributes to warming, Trump said, “I think a lot of things do, but I think to an extent, yes.” Trump told The Washington Post’s editorial board in 2016 that he is “not a great believer in man-made climate change.” He has also long rejected climate science, sometimes calling global warming a “hoax.”
Climate change and extreme weather
Q: Do you believe climate change is making disasters such as hurricanes, wildfires and heat waves more intense?
Democrat
A: Harris has said the United States must take action to fight climate change in the face of increasing drought, floods, hurricanes, wildfires and sea level rise. As vice president, Harris announced more than $1 billion in grants in 2022 for states to address flooding and extreme heat exacerbated by climate change. “The frequency has accelerated in a relatively short period of time,” she said. “The science is clear. Extreme weather will only get worse, and the climate crisis will only accelerate.’’
Republican
A: At a rally in March 2022, Trump mocked the threat posed by sea-level rise and the nation’s concern with combating climate change. “And yet you have people like John Kerry worrying about the climate! The climate!” Trump said. “Oh, I heard that the other day. Here we are, [Russian President Vladimir Putin is] threatening us [and] he’s worried about the ocean will rise one-hundredth of one percent over the next 300 f—in’ years.” In 2019, Trump also exclusively blamed forest mismanagement for more destructive and deadly wildfires, rather than climate change. Scientists have said that no amount of forest management can stop wildfires in a more flammable world.
How to address climate change
Q: Should climate change be addressed through government action or market forces?
Democrat
A: The Biden-Harris administration’s signature Inflation Reduction Act represents the largest infusion of government cash into climate and clean-energy initiatives. Harris and Biden sought to put the U.S. on a path to cutting greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030. Under Harris’s climate plan as a 2019 presidential candidate, she advocated for a blend of government action and market forces to combat global warming. “A climate pollution fee can play an important role as one of several interrelated policies to reduce emissions and hold polluters accountable…” she said. “However, history shows us that reliance on market mechanisms alone can often leave communities behind.”
Republican
A: During his four years in office, Trump aggressively targeted and rolled back more than 125 rules and policies meant to protect the environment and lower planet-warming emissions.
Clean energy tax credits
Q: Do you support clean-energy tax credits such as those for electric vehicles?
Democrat
A: In 2022, Harris cast the tie-breaking vote to pass the Inflation Reduction Act, which provides hundreds of billions of dollars in government subsidies for electric cars and other clean-energy technology, including tax credits for clean-energy and energy-efficiency home projects. She has been a proponent of electric vehicles and as a senator supported a national zero-emissions vehicle standard. In May, she visited Detroit to announce federal grants for smaller companies making electric-vehicle parts.
Republican
A: In a 2023 campaign ad, Trump promised to roll back President Biden’s electric vehicle policies and subsidies. “Biden is spending billions and billions of taxpayer dollars subsidizing electric cars for rich people while normal Americans can’t afford to use one, nor do they even want to,” Trump said. “I saved the American auto industry once and now I will save it again.”
About this project
We collected the positions of the 2024 presidential candidates on abortion, climate, crime and guns, the economy, education, elections, foreign policy and immigration. We used a variety of sources for our reporting, including publicly available information, campaign websites, voting records, news articles and the campaigns themselves. Feedback? Email us at policypages@washpost.com.
Candidate illustrations by Ben Kirchner for The Washington Post. Icons by Tim Boelaars for The Washington Post. Editing by Rachel Van Dongen, Candace Mitchell and Megan Griffith-Greene. Design and development by Agnes Lee, Jake Crump and Tyler Remmel. Design editing by Madison Walls and Virginia Singarayar.
SDGs, Targets, and Indicators
1. Which SDGs are addressed or connected to the issues highlighted in the article?
- SDG 13: Climate Action
2. What specific targets under those SDGs can be identified based on the article’s content?
- Target 13.1: Strengthen resilience and adaptive capacity to climate-related hazards and natural disasters
- Target 13.2: Integrate climate change measures into national policies, strategies, and planning
- Target 13.3: Improve education, awareness-raising, and human and institutional capacity on climate change mitigation, adaptation, impact reduction, and early warning
- Target 13.5: Implement the commitment undertaken by developed-country parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change to a goal of mobilizing jointly $100 billion annually by 2020 from all sources to address the needs of developing countries in the context of meaningful mitigation actions and transparency on implementation and fully operationalize the Green Climate Fund through its capitalization as soon as possible
3. Are there any indicators mentioned or implied in the article that can be used to measure progress towards the identified targets?
- Indicator 13.1.1: Number of deaths, missing persons, and directly affected persons attributed to disasters per 100,000 population
- Indicator 13.2.1: Number of countries that have integrated mitigation, adaptation, impact reduction, and early warning into primary, secondary, and tertiary curricula
- Indicator 13.3.1: Number of countries that have communicated the strengthening of institutional, systemic, and individual capacity-building to implement adaptation, mitigation, and technology transfer
- Indicator 13.5.1: Mobilized amount of United States dollars per year between 2020 and 2025 accountable towards the $100 billion commitment
Table: SDGs, Targets, and Indicators
| SDGs | Targets | Indicators |
|---|---|---|
| SDG 13: Climate Action | Target 13.1: Strengthen resilience and adaptive capacity to climate-related hazards and natural disasters | Indicator 13.1.1: Number of deaths, missing persons, and directly affected persons attributed to disasters per 100,000 population |
| SDG 13: Climate Action | Target 13.2: Integrate climate change measures into national policies, strategies, and planning | Indicator 13.2.1: Number of countries that have integrated mitigation, adaptation, impact reduction, and early warning into primary, secondary, and tertiary curricula |
| Target 13.3: Improve education, awareness-raising, and human and institutional capacity on climate change mitigation, adaptation, impact reduction, and early warning | Indicator 13.3.1: Number of countries that have communicated the strengthening of institutional, systemic, and individual capacity-building to implement adaptation, mitigation, and technology transfer | |
| Target 13.5: Implement the commitment undertaken by developed-country parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change to a goal of mobilizing jointly $100 billion annually by 2020 from all sources to address the needs of developing countries in the context of meaningful mitigation actions and transparency on implementation and fully operationalize the Green Climate Fund through its capitalization as soon as possible | Indicator 13.5.1: Mobilized amount of United States dollars per year between 2020 and 2025 accountable towards the $100 billion commitment |
Source: washingtonpost.com
