When it comes to action on climate change, likely Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris has a strong record compared with Republican Donald Trump. But that doesn’t mean people who see climate as a top issue will necessarily vote for Harris.
On the campaign trail, former president Trump has painted Vice President Harris as an extreme liberal and has repeated her 2019 comment that if elected, she would ban fracking.
Of course, that hasn’t happened, and Harris has said in recent days that she will not ban fracking.
In fact, the Biden administration oversaw record-breaking oil and gas production because of fracking.
“They’re taking two steps forward and one step back when it comes to…solving climate change,” said Ned Ketyer, a retired Pittsburgh-area pediatrician, who is now president of the board of Physicians for Social Responsibility Pennsylvania, which is concerned about the health impacts of fracking on frontline communities.
Some environmental leaders have said they are ecstatic with Harris’s candidacy because of her strong record on climate and clean energy efforts.
Under the Biden-Harris leadership, the country has made big investments in climate action. “You have really important things like the Inflation Reduction Act and the [Bipartisan] Infrastructure bill,” Ketyer said.
Those laws have provided the nation’s largest-ever investments in climate action, providing billions of dollars for everything from clean-running school buses and offshore wind to updates to the nation’s electric grid. All of this is meant to shift the country away from fossil fuels.
But at the same time, Ketyer is disappointed that the administration has supported the oil and gas industry.
“You’ve got approval of drilling in Alaska, which isn’t a good idea from a climate standpoint, and new gas pipelines through the mountains and valleys of Virginia,” he said.
But while Ketyer doesn’t think Harris’ record on climate and clean energy is perfect, “The alternative is like 10 steps back, and the contrast is so real and so obvious to me,” he said.
Ketyer cites the right-wing Project 2025, which promotes fossil fuels. While Trump has not endorsed it, according to reports, he did ask oil executives to donate $1 billion to his campaign and promised to reverse President Biden’s environmental rules that hamper their industry. During his previous term, Trump rolled back nearly 100 environmental regulations.
Campaigning on climate
While climate change is not a top issue for the electorate as a whole, it could still help the Harris campaign in Pennsylvania, according to Parrish Bergquist, who is an assistant professor of political science at the University of Pennsylvania, focused on climate, energy and environmental policy.
She said Harris could tout the clean energy projects that have been funded in Pennsylvania through the Inflation Reduction Act and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.
“Talking about those, I think, would be politically beneficial. Rather than talking about banning fracking, talking about building a new [clean energy] industry in communities that are suffering,” Bergquist said.
Harris could also have an educational role to play when it comes to helping people understand climate change as more than just a niche issue, Bergquist said. “So that it… feels like an economic issue, and a family issue, and a lifestyle issue, and…an issue that matters right now.”
Caring about climate but not voting
For people already focused on solving the climate crisis, the election is not Democrats versus Republicans. “They’re largely deciding not between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump,” said Nathaniel Stinnett, “but between Kamala Harris or staying home on the couch.”
Stinnett leads the Environmental Voter Project, a non-profit that is strategically targeting people who prioritize climate change in Allegheny County and around Philadelphia, along with people in 18 other states, and encouraging them to vote.
He points out that the 2020 election was decided by only 80,555 votes in Pennsylvania. His group has identified 350,000 people in the state, the majority of them young people, who rank climate change as one of their top issues, but who might not vote at all.
Stinnett encourages the Harris campaign or any campaign that wants to take advantage of that to connect caring about the climate with voting.
“You want them to think that even more than biking to work or eating less meat, voting is how they can express themselves as environmentalists,” Stinnett said.
Harris faces criticism from some climate hawks, who fault the administration for compromising with fossil fuel interests to get the climate laws passed. Stinnett thinks she should face this head-on.
“I would suggest to any politician that you can describe what happened in the past in an honest way, which was a victory built on a compromise,” he said. “But moving forward, you need to describe how you’re going to continue getting more climate victories.”
A young climate voter calls for bold action
Elise Silvestri, age 19, is currently a sophomore at New York University, but she became active in the Sunrise Movement, a youth climate and political group when she was in high school in Pittsburgh.
Her friends were not motivated to vote when the matchup was Biden versus Trump.
“But I think Harris being the new nominee is definitely exciting people a little bit more,” she said.
The national Sunrise Movement has not endorsed Harris.
As a Pennsylvania resident, Silvestri understands why Harris might back away from a fracking ban. There’s political liability in the job losses it could cause. Still, Silvestri worries about the pollution from fracking. She wants Harris to revive her 2019 comment, that’s gotten her so much criticism from Trump, that she would ban it.
“As a young person, what I want is not her to be scared and try to cater to other people, but present a bold vision of a just transition,” she said.
Silvestri thinks that’s the kind of move that would get climate-conscious young people to the polls in November.
Read more from our partners, The Allegheny Front.
