President-elect Donald Trump’s cabinet picks include oil and gas industry executive Chris Wright, North Dakota governor Doug Burgum, and ex-congressman Lee Zeldin.

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Climate experts, environmental organizations and advocacy groups are reacting to Donald Trump’s cabinet picks, which include climate deniers, fossil fuel advocates and people with no political experience.

Doug Burgum

The president-elect on Friday announced he is nominating Republican governor Doug Burgum as the interior secretary and “energy czar.” The new position was created to carry out the administration’s sweeping plans to scale back energy and climate rules implemented under President Joe Biden and boost oil and gas production on millions of acres of federal lands nationwide, including national parks and wildlife refuges.

Burgum was elected in 2016 as the governor of North Dakota, the third largest oil and natural gas producer in the US, and made oil and natural gas production a priority.

In a statement, Trump said that the proposed National Energy Council that Burgum will helm “will consist of all Departments and Agencies involved in the permitting, production, generation, distribution, regulation, transportation, of ALL forms of American Energy.”

The nomination has prompted swift backlash from environmental advocacy groups, including the Center for Biological Diversity, the Sierra Club, and the Center for Western Priorities.

The Sierra Club, the country’s largest non-profit environmental organization, said Burgum’s ties with the fossil fuel industry “run deep” and he has “long advocated for rolling back critical environmental safeguards in order to let polluters profit.”

“[I]f confirmed to this position, he will surely continue Donald Trump’s efforts to sell out our public lands to his polluter pals. Our lands are our nation’s greatest treasure, and the interior department is charged with their protection,” the organization said in a statement.

“Doug Burgum comes from an oil state, but North Dakota is not a public lands state. His cozy relationship with oil billionaires may endear him to Donald Trump, but he has no experience that qualifies him to oversee the management of 20 percent of America’s lands,” said Center for Western Priorities’ Executive Director Jennifer Rokala.

“Running the Interior department requires someone who can find balance between recreation, conservation, hunting, ranching, mining, and—yes—oil drilling. If Doug Burgum tries to turn America’s public lands into an even bigger cash cow for the oil and gas industry, or tries to shrink America’s parks and national monuments, he’ll quickly discover he’s on the wrong side of history,” Rokala added.

Chris Wright

Trump on Saturday announced oil and gas industry executive and campaign donor Chris Wright as his pick to lead the US Department of Energy. In a statement, Wright said he was “honored and grateful” to be picked to lead the energy department.

Wright won support from many conservative figures from the fossil fuel industry in recent weeks, including Oklahoma oil and gas billionaire Harold Hamm, a major Trump donor and informal advisor, and Mike Sommers, president of the American Petroleum Institute.

Wright, a staunch defender of fossil fuel use and vocal critic of climate alarmism, is expected to fulfil Trump’s campaign promise to “drill, baby, drill” and undo many of his predecessor’s biggest clean energy achievements, steering the department back to America’s roots in oil and gas production.

The burning of coal, natural gas, and oil for electricity and heat is the single-largest source of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. These are the primary drivers of global warming as they trap heat in the atmosphere and raising Earth’s surface temperature.

In a video posted on LinkedIn last year, Wright, who is the CEO of fracking company Liberty Energy and has no political experience, denied that there is a climate crisis or that we are in the midst of an energy transition .

“Carbon dioxide does indeed absorb infrared radiation, contributing to warming,” Wright said. “But calling carbon dioxide ‘pollution’ is like calling out water and oxygen, the other two irreplaceable molecules for life on earth,” he said in the video.

Several environmental advocates have condemned Trump’s choice. Jackie Wong, senior vice president for climate and energy at the Natural Resources Defense Council, called Wright’s nomination a “disastrous mistake,” describing him as “a champion of dirty fossil fuels.”

“The Energy Department should be doing all it can to develop and expand the energy sources of the 21st century, not trying to promote the dirty fuels of the last century. Given the devastating impacts of climate-fuelled disasters, DOE’s core mission of researching and promoting cleaner energy solutions is more important now than ever,” Wong said.

Lee Zeldin

On Monday, Trump said he will appoint Republican former congressman Lee Zeldin to lead the Environmental Protection Agency. The EPA works to protect the environment in the country, particularly as it relates to human health.

The president-elect said Zeldin “will ensure fair and swift deregulatory decisions that will be enacted in a way to unleash the power of American businesses, while at the same time maintaining the highest environmental standards, including the cleanest air and water on the planet.”

During his time in Congress between 2015 and 2023, Zeldin supported just 14% of key pieces of environmental legislation, according to a scorecard by environmental group the League of Conservation Voters.

The former Representative from New York voted against Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, the largest climate bill in US history. He also opposed clean water and clean air protections and the EPA’s methane pollution safeguards, and he campaigned against a ban on petrol cars in New York by 2035 that Trump threatened to terminate.

In a statement issued by the League of Conservation Voters, Senior Vice President for Government Affairs, Tiernan Sittenfeld said the stakes for the climate and future generations “could not be higher.”

“Trump made his anti-climate action, anti-environment agenda very clear during his first term and again during his 2024 campaign. During the confirmation process, we would challenge Lee Zeldin to show how he would be better than Trump’s campaign promises or his own failing 14% environmental score if he wants to be charged with protecting the air we breathe, the water we drink, and finding solutions to climate change,” Sittenfeld said. 

In a post on social media X (formerly Twitter), Zeldin said he is “looking forward” to take up the position “to unleash US energy dominance, make America the AI capital of the world, bring American auto jobs back home, and so much more.”

Featured image: Gage Skidmore.

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“It’s very important that the United States remain in the Paris Agreement, and more than remain in the Paris agreement, that the United States adopts the kind of policies that are necessary to make the 1.5 degrees still a realistic objective,” Guterres told the Guardian.

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The UN Secretary-General has warned of the potential repercussions of a Trump presidency on international climate targets and policies amid the possibility of a second US exit from the Paris accord.

Just months after taking office in 2017, former US president Donald Trump announced the country’s withdrawal from the Paris Agreement, a move that only took effect three years later owing to UN regulations.

The Paris deal was drafted in 2015 to strengthen the global response to the growing threat of climate change. It set out a framework for limiting global warming to below 1.5C or “well below 2C” above pre-industrial levels by the end of the century. Beyond this limit, experts warn that critical tipping points will be breached, leading to devastating and potentially irreversible consequences for several vital Earth systems that sustain a hospitable planet.

In June, a Trump campaign spokesperson told Politico that Trump would yank the US out of the Paris deal for the second time if he wins the presidency again in November.

Speaking to the Guardian at last week’s COP16 biodiversity summit in Cali, Colombia, António Guterres said the progress on the Paris Agreement could suffer a major setback if the US were to leave the international treaty for a second time, after President Joe Biden rejoined it in 2020.

“The Paris agreement can survive, but people sometimes can lose important organs or lose the legs and survive. But we don’t want a crippled Paris agreement. We want a real Paris agreement,” Guterres said. “It’s very important that the United States remain in the Paris Agreement, and more than remain in the Paris agreement, that the United States adopts the kind of policies that are necessary to make the 1.5 degrees still a realistic objective.”

The Republican nominee has repeatedly denied climate change, calling if a “hoax,” and he has vowed to “drill, baby, drill” for more oil and gas.

Fossil fuels – natural gas, coal, and oil – are the single-largest source of global greenhouse gas emissions, the primary drivers of global warming by trapping heat in the atmosphere and raising Earth’s surface temperature. The International Energy Agency (IEA) has urged countries to halt new gas and oil field projects, arguing that this is the only way to keep the 1.5C-compatible net-zero emissions scenario alive.

Trump has also hinted at his intention to scrap the most important climate laws passed during the Biden administration and undermine the powers of federal agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency and the Federal Emergency Management Agency if he wins the November election.

Speaking about California’s ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel cars from 2035 on The Joe Rogan Experience podcast last month, Trump said he would “terminate the mandate immediately.” The state-wide plan, one of the first such regulations in the world, was approved in 2022 to tackle air pollution from vehicles, a pressing issue in California.

“That would be done I would say in my first day, maybe two days,” he said.

In April, a former Trump White House official said that Trump would take a “hard-nosed look” at any outcome of the ongoing negotiations for a Global Plastic Treaty, scheduled to be finalized by the end of this year, and be “skeptical that the agreement reached was the best agreement that could have been reached.”

Featured image: Gage Skidmore/Flickr.

More on the topic: The Climate Stakes of the Harris-Trump Election

The post Second US Withdrawal From Paris Agreement Would Undermine Global Efforts to Halt Climate Change, UN Chief Says appeared first on Earth.Org.

From public health to public lands, here are 15 ways the next president could affect the climate and your life.

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Helene and Milton, the two massive hurricanes that just swept into the country — killing hundreds of people, and leaving both devastation and rumblings of political upheaval in seven states — amounted to their own October surprise. Not that the storms led to some irredeemable gaffe or unveiled some salacious scandal. The surprise, really, may be that not even the hurricanes have pushed concerns about climate change more toward the center of the presidential campaign.  

With early voting already underway and two weeks before Election Day, when voters will decide between Vice President Kamala Harris, who has called climate change an “existential threat,” and former President Donald Trump, who has called climate change a “hoax,” Grist’s editorial staff presents a climate-focused voter’s guide — a package of analyses and predictions about what the next four years may bring from the White House, depending on who wins. 

The next administration will be decisive for the country’s progress on critical climate goals. By 2030, just a year after the next president would leave office, the U.S. has committed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 50 to 52 percent below 2005 levels, and expects to supply up to 13 million electric vehicles annually. A little further down the line, though no less critical, the country’s climate goals include reaching 100 percent carbon-free electricity by 2035 and achieving a net-zero emissions economy by 2050.

As you gear up to vote, here are 15 ways that Harris’ and Trump’s climate- and environment-related policies could affect your life — along with some information to help inform your vote. 

Your Energy Mix

Over the last year or so, utility companies across the country have woken up to a new reality: After two decades of flat growth, electricity demand is about to spike, due to the combined pressures of new data centers, cryptocurrency mining, a manufacturing boom, and the electrification of buildings and transportation.

While the next president will not directly decide how the states supply power to their new and varied customers, he or she will oversee the massive system of incentives, subsidies, and loans by which the federal government influences how much utilities meet electricity demand by burning fossil fuels — the crucial question for the climate. 

Trump’s answer to that question can perhaps be summed up in the three-word catchphrase he’s deployed on the campaign trail: “Drill, baby, drill.” He is an avowed friend of the fossil fuel industry, from whom he reportedly demanded $1 billion in campaign funds at a fundraising dinner last spring, promising in exchange to gut environmental regulations. 

Vice President Harris is not exactly running on a platform of decarbonization, either. In an effort to win swing votes in the shale-boom heartland of Pennsylvania, she has reversed course on her past opposition to fracking, and she has proudly touted the record levels of oil and gas production seen under the current administration. Despite the risk of nuclear waste, the Biden administration has also championed nuclear power as a carbon-free solution and sought to incentivize the construction of new reactors through subsidies and loans. Although Harris says her administration would not be a continuation of Biden’s, it’s reasonable to expect continuity with Biden’s overall approach of leaning more heavily on incentives for low-emissions energy than restrictions on fossil fuels to further a climate agenda.

Your Home Improvements

In 2022, the Biden administration handed the American people a great big carrot to incentivize them to decarbonize: the Inflation Reduction Act, or IRA. It provides thousands of dollars in the form of rebates and tax credits for a consumer to get an EV and electrify their home with solar panels, a heat pump, and an induction stove. (Though the funding available for renters is slim, it is also out there.) In 2023, 3.4 million Americans got $8.4 billion in tax credits for home energy improvements thanks to the IRA.

If elected, Trump has pledged to rescind the remaining funding, which would require the support of Congress. By contrast, Harris has praised the law (which, as vice president, she famously cast the tie-breaking vote to pass) and would almost certainly veto any attempts by Congress to repeal it. As a presidential candidate, she has not said whether she would expand the law, though many expect she would focus on more efficient implementation.  

But while repealing the IRA might slow the steady pace of American households decarbonizing, it can’t stop what’s already in motion. “There are fundamental forces here at work,” said Gernot Wagner, a climate economist at Columbia Business School. “At the end of the day, there’s very little that Trump can do to stand in the way.” 

For one, the feds provide guidance to states on how to distribute the money made available through the IRA. More climate-ambitious states are already layering on their own monetary incentives to decarbonize. So even if that IRA money disappeared, states could pick up the slack. 

And two, even before the IRA passed, market forces were setting clean energy on a path to replace fossil fuels. The price of solar power dropped by 90 percent between 2010 and 2020. And like any technology, electric appliances will only get cheaper and better. It might take longer without further support from the federal government, but the American home of tomorrow is, inevitably, fully electric — no matter the next administration.

Your Home Insurance Premiums

Whether they know it or not, many Americans are already confronting the costs of a warming world in their monthly bills: In recent years, home insurance premiums have risen in almost every state, as insurance companies face the fallout of larger and more damaging hurricanes, wildfires, and hailstorms. In some states, like Florida and California, many prominent companies have fled the market altogether. While some Democrats have proposed legislation that would create a federal backstop for these failing insurance markets — with the goal of ensuring that coverage remains available for most homeowners — these proposals have yet to make much headway in a divided Congress. For the moment, it’s state governments, rather than the president or any other national politicians, that have real jurisdiction over homeowner’s insurance prices.

Near the end of the presidential debate in September, when both candidates were asked about what they’d do to “fight climate change,” Harris began her response by referring to “anyone who lives in a state who has experienced these extreme weather occurrences, who now is either being denied home insurance or is being jacked up” as a way to counter Trump’s denials of climate change. 

Traditional homeowner policies don’t include flood insurance, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency runs a flood insurance program that serves 5 million homeowners in the U.S., mostly along the East Coast. Homeowners in the most flood-prone areas are required to buy this policy, but uptake has been lagging in some particularly vulnerable inland communities — including those that were recently devastated by Hurricane Helene. Project 2025, which many experts believe will serve as the blueprint to a second Trump term (though his campaign disavows any connection to it), imagines FEMA winding down the program altogether, throwing flood coverage to the private market. This would likely make it cheaper to live in risky areas — but it would leave homeowners without financial support after floods, all but ensuring only the rich could rebuild.

Your Transportation

The appetite for infrastructure spending is so bipartisan that the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, signed in 2021, has become more widely known as the bipartisan infrastructure law. But don’t be fooled. A wide gulf separates how Harris and Trump approach transportation, with potentially profound climate implications.

Harris hasn’t offered many specifics, but she has committed to advancing the rollout out of the Biden administration’s infrastructure agenda. That includes traditional efforts like building roads and bridges, mixed with Democratic priorities including union labor and an eye toward climate-resilience. The infrastructure law and the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act include billions in spending to promote the adoption of electric vehicles, produce them domestically, and add 500,000 charging stations by 2030. They also include greener transportation efforts aimed at, among other things, electrifying buses, enhancing passenger rail, and expanding mass transit. That said, Harris has not called for the eventual elimination of internal combustion vehicles despite such plans in 12 states.

Trump has also been sparse on details about transportation — his website doesn’t address the issue except to decry Chinese ownership. During his first term and 2020 campaign, he championed (though never produced) a $1 trillion infrastructure plan. It focused on building “gleaming” roads, highways, and bridges, and reducing the environmental review and government oversight of such projects. He has favored flipping the federal-first funding model to shift much of the cost onto states, municipalities, and the private sector. Ultimately, Trump seems to have little interest in a transition to low-carbon transportation — the 2024 official Republican platform calls for rolling back EV mandates — and he remains a vocal supporter of fossil fuel production.  

Your Health

Rising global temperatures and worsening extreme weather are changing the distribution and prevalence of tick- and mosquito-borne diseases, fungal pathogens, and water-borne bacteria across the U.S. State and local health departments rely heavily on data and recommendations on these climate-fueled illnesses from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or CDC — an agency whose director is appointed by the president and can be influenced by the White House. 

In his first term, Trump tried to divorce many federal agencies’ research functions from their rulemaking capacities, and there are concerns that, if he wins again in November, Trump would continue that effort. Project 2025, a sweeping blueprint developed by right-wing conservative groups with the aim of influencing a second Trump term, proposes separating the CDC’s disease surveillance efforts from its policy recommendation work, meaning the agency would be able to track the effects of climate change on human health, like the spreading of infectious diseases, but it wouldn’t be able to tell states how to manage them or inform the public about how to stay safe from them. 

Harris is expected to leave the CDC intact, but she hasn’t given many signals on how she’d approach climate and health initiatives. Her campaign website says she aims to protect public health, but provides no further clarification or policy position on that subject, or specifically climate change’s influence on it. Over the past four years, the Biden administration has made strides in protecting Americans from extreme heat, the leading cause of weather-related deaths in the U.S. It proposed new heat protections for indoor and outdoor workers, and it made more than $1 billion in grant funding available to nonprofits, tribes, cities, and states for cooling initiatives such as planting trees in urban areas, which reduce the risk of heat illness. It’s reasonable to expect that a future Harris administration would continue Biden’s work in this area. Harris cast the tie-breaking vote on the IRA, which includes emissions-cutting policies that will lead to less global warming in the long term, benefiting human health not just in the U.S. but worldwide. 

But there’s more to be done. Biden established the Office of Climate Change and Health Equity in the first year of his term, but it still hasn’t been funded by Congress. Harris has not said whether she will push for more funding for that office.

Your Food Prices

Inflation has cooled significantly since 2022, but high prices — especially high food prices — remain a concern for many Americans. Both candidates have promised to tackle the issue; Harris went so far as to propose a federal price-gouging ban to lower the cost of groceries. Such a ban could help smaller producers and suppliers, but economists fear it could also lead to further supply shortages and reduced product quality. Meanwhile, Trump has said he will tax imported goods to lower food prices, though analysts have pointed out that the tax would likely do the opposite. Trump-era tariff fights during the U.S.-China trade war led to farmers losing billions of dollars in exports, which the federal government had to make up for with subsidies.

Trump’s immigration agenda could also affect food prices. If reelected, the former president has said he will expel millions of undocumented immigrants, many of whom work for low pay on farms and in other parts of the food sector, playing a vital role in food harvesting and processing. Their mass deportation and the resulting labor shortage could drive up prices at the grocery store. Meanwhile, Harris promises to uphold and strengthen the H-2A visa system — the national program that enables agricultural producers to hire foreign-born workers for seasonal work. 

In the short term, it must be emphasized that neither candidate’s economic plans will have much of an effect on the ways extreme weather and climate disasters are already driving up the cost of groceries. Severe droughts are one of the factors that have destabilized the global crop market in recent years, translating to higher U.S. grocery store prices. Warming has led to reduced agricultural productivity and diminished crop yields, while major disasters throttle the supply chain. Even a forecast of extreme weather can send food prices higher. These climate trends are likely to continue over the next four years, no matter who becomes president. 

But the winner of the 2024 election can determine how badly climate change batters the food supply in the long run — primarily by controlling greenhouse gas emissions.

Your Drinking Water

“I want absolutely immaculate, clean water,” Trump said in June during the first presidential debate this election season. But if a second Trump presidency is anything like the first, there is good reason to worry about the protection of public drinking water. 

During his first term in office, the Trump administration repealed the Clean Water Rule, a critical part of the Clean Water Act that limited the amount of pollutants companies could discharge near streams, wetlands, and other sources of water used for public consumption. “It was ready to protect the drinking water of 117 million Americans and then, within a few months of being in office, Donald Trump and [former EPA administrator] Scott Pruitt threw it into the trash bin to appease their polluter allies,” former Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune said in a press release. 

While in office, Trump also secured a conservative majority on the Supreme Court, which last year tipped the court in favor of a decision to vastly limit the Environmental Protection Agency’s power to regulate pollution in certain wetlands, forcing the agency to weaken its own clean water rules. 

A Harris administration would likely carry forward the work of several Biden EPA measures to safeguard the public’s drinking water from toxic heavy metals and other contaminants. For example, in April, the EPA passed the nation’s first-ever national drinking water standard to protect an estimated 100 million people from a category of synthetic chemicals known as PFAS, or “forever chemicals,” which have been linked to cancer, high blood pressure, and immune system deficiencies. Enforcing the new standard will require the agency to examine test results from thousands of water systems across the country and follow up to ensure their compliance — an effort that will take place during the next White House administration. 

“As president,” Harris’ website says, “she will unite Americans to tackle the climate crisis as she builds on this historic work, advances environmental justice, protects public lands and public health, increases resilience to climate disasters, lowers household energy costs, creates millions of new jobs, and continues to hold polluters accountable to secure clean air and water for all.” Project 2025, the policy plan drawn up by former Trump staffers to guide a second Trump administration’s policies, indicates that a future Trump administration would eliminate safeguards like the PFAS rule that place limits on industrial emissions and discharges. 

Just this month, the EPA issued a groundbreaking rule requiring water utilities to replace virtually every lead pipe in the country within 10 years. With funds from Biden’s bipartisan infrastructure law, the agency will also invest $2.6 billion for drinking water upgrades and lead pipe replacements. Harris has previously spoken out about the dangers of lead pipes, stating at a press conference in 2022 that lead exposure is “an issue that we as a nation should commit to ending.” 

The success of these and other measures will rely on a well-staffed EPA enforcement division, which may end up being one of the most insidious stakes of this election for environmental policies. Budget cuts and staff departures during the first Trump administration gutted the EPA’s enforcement capacity — a problem that the agency has spent the past four years trying to mend. Project 2025 “would essentially eviscerate the EPA,” said Stan Meiburg, who served as acting deputy administrator for the EPA from 2014 to 2017. 

Your Clean Air

President Biden’s clean air policy has been characterized by a spate of new rules to curb toxic air pollution from a variety of facilities, including petroleum coke ovens, synthetic manufacturing facilities, and steel mills. While environmental advocates have decried some of these regulations as insufficiently protective, certain provisions — such as mandatory air monitoring — were hailed as milestones in the history of the agency’s air pollution policy. Former EPA staffer and air pollution expert Scott Throwe told Grist that a Harris- and Democratic-led EPA would continue to build on the work of the past four years by  enforcing these new rules, which will require federal oversight of state environmental agencies’ inspection protocols and monitoring data. 

Project 2025 proposes a major reorganization of the EPA, which would include the reduction of full-time staff positions and the elimination of departments deemed “superfluous.” It also promotes the rollback of a range of air quality regulations, from ambient air standards for toxic pollutants to greenhouse gas emissions from coal-fired power plants. 

What’s more, a growing body of research has found that poor air quality is often concentrated in communities of color, which are disproportionately close to fossil fuel infrastructure. Conservative state governments havepushedback against the Biden EPA’s efforts to address “environmental justice” through agency channels and in court — efforts that will likely enjoy more executive support under a second Trump administration.

Your Public Lands

Under the Antiquities Act of 1906, a national monument can be created by presidential decree. The act can be a useful tool to protect important landscapes from industries like oil, gas, and even green energy enterprises. Tribal nations have asked numerous presidents to use this executive power to protect tribal homelands that might fall within federal jurisdiction. During his first term, Trump argued that the act also gives the president the implicit power to dissolve a national monument.

In 2017, Trump drastically shrunk two Obama-era designations, Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante in Utah, in what amounted to the biggest slash of federal land protections in the history of the United States. At the time, Trump said that “bureaucrats in Washington” should not control what happens to land in Utah. While giving back local control was Trump’s stated rationale, tribes in the area, like the Diné, Ute, Hopi, and Zuni, had been working for years to protect the two iconic and culturally significant sites. Meanwhile, his decision opened up the land for oil and gas development. While not all tribal nations are opposed to oil and gas production, tribal environmental advocates are worried that a second Trump term will erode federal environmental regulations and commitments to progress in the fight against climate change. 

Since 2021, the Biden administration has put more than 42 million acres of land into conservation by creating and expanding national monuments. This includes the Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni, a new monument spanning a million acres near the Grand Canyon — the kind of protection that tribal activists for years had worked to prevent industrial uranium mining. And just this month, Biden announced the creation of the Chumash Heritage National Marine Sanctuary — a 4,500-square-mile national marine sanctuary to be “managed with tribal, Indigenous community involvement.” 

But Harris might not continue that legacy. While she has remained silent about what she would do to protect lands, she has been vocal about continuing the U.S.’s oil and gas production as well as a push for more mining to help with the green transition — like copper from Oak Flat in Arizona and lithium from Thacker Pass in Nevada — both important places to tribal communities in the area. Tribes have been subjected to the adverse effects of the energy crisis before — namely dams that destroyed swaths of homelands and nuclear energy that increased cancer rates of Southwest tribal members — and without specific protections, it’s easy to see green energy as a changing of the guard instead of a game changer.

Your Next Climate Disaster

Congress controls how much money the Federal Emergency Management Agency receives for relief efforts after catastrophic events like hurricanes Helene and Milton, but the president holds significant sway over who receives money and when. A second Trump administration would likely curtail some of the climate-focused resiliency projects FEMA has pursued in recent years, such as cutting back money for infrastructure that would be more resilient against hazards like sea level rises, fires, and earthquakes. Republican firebrands, like Representative Scott Perry from Pennsylvania, have decried these projects as wasteful and unnecessary.

Under the Stafford Act, which governs federal disaster response, the president has the power to disburse relief to specific parts of the country after any “major disaster” — hurricanes, big floods, fires. In September, Trump suggested that he might make disaster aid contingent on political support if he returns to office, promising to withhold wildfire support from California unless state officials give more irrigation water to Central Valley farmers. Harris has not given an explicit indication of how she would fund climate-resiliency or disaster-response programs, though she has boosted FEMA’s recovery efforts following Helene and Milton.

Your Understanding of Climate Change

The United States has long been a leader in research essential to understanding — and responding to — a warming world. The government plays a key role in advancing climate science and providing timely meteorological data to the public. Neither Trump nor Harris address this in their platform, but history yields clues to what their presidency might mean for this vital work. 

Trump has consistently dismissed climate change as a “hoax” and downplayed scientific consensus that it is anthropogenic, or driven by human activities. As president, he gutted funding for research, appointed climate skeptics and industry insiders, and eliminated  scientific advisory committees from several federal agencies. Thousands of government scientists quit in response. (In fact, still reeling from Trump’s attacks, new union contracts protect scientific integrity to combat such meddling.) His administration censored scientific data on government websites and tried to undermine the findings of the National Climate Assessment, the government’s scientific report on the risks and impacts of climate change. If reelected, Trump would almost certainly adopt a similar strategy, deprioritizing climate science and potentially even restructuring or eliminating federal agencies that advance it.

Harris has long supported climate action; she co-sponsored the Green New Deal as a senator and, as vice president, cast the deciding vote to pass the Inflation Reduction Act, which bolstered funding for agencies that oversee climate research. As part of its “whole of government” approach to the crisis, the Biden administration created the National Climate Task Force, with the EPA, NASA, and others to ensure science informs policy. Although Harris hasn’t said much about climate change as a candidate, climate organizations generally support her campaign and believe her administration will build on the progress made so far.

Your Electric Bill

A lot goes into calculating the energy rates you see on your monthly electric bill — construction and maintenance of power plants, fuel costs, and much more. It’s pretty tough to draw a direct line from the president to your bill, so if you’re worried about your energy costs, you’d do well to read up on your local public utility commission, municipal electric authority, or electric membership cooperative board.

What the president can do, though, is appoint people to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, or FERC — the board of up to five individuals who regulate the transmission of utilities across the entire country. As the U.S. continues to shift away from fossil fuels, a fundamental problem stands in the way: The country’s aging and fragmented grid lacks the capacity to move all of the electricity being generated from renewable sources. In May, FERC, which currently has a Democratic majority, approved a rule to try to solve that issue; it voted to require that regional utilities identify opportunities for upgrading the capacities of existing transmission infrastructure and that regional grid operators forecast their transmission needs 20 years into the future. These steps will be essential for utility companies to take advantage of the subsidies offered in the IRA and bipartisan infrastructure law. 

The rule is facing legal challenges, which like much else in U.S. courts, appear to be political. So even if Harris wins November’s election, and maintains a commission that prioritizes the transition away from fossil fuels, the oil and gas industry and the politicians who support it will not acquiesce easily. If Trump wins, he’d have the chance to appoint a new FERC chair from among the current commissioners and to appoint a new commissioner in 2026, when the current chair’s term ends. (Or possibly sooner.) Although FERC’s actions tend to be more insulated from changes in the White House because commissioners serve five-year terms, a commission led by new Trump appointees would most likely deprioritize initiatives that would upgrade the grid to support clean energy adoption. Trump’s appointees supported fossil fuel interests on several fronts during his previous term, for instance by counteracting state subsidies to favor coal and gas plants.

Your Trash

Some 33 billion pounds of plastic waste enter the marine environment globally every year, and the problem is expected to worsen as the fossil fuel and petrochemical industries ramp up plastic production.

Perhaps the most important step the next president could take to curb plastic pollution is to push Congress to ratify and implement the United Nations’ global plastics treaty, which is scheduled to be finalized by the end of this year. The Biden administration recently announced its support for a version of the treaty that limits plastic production, and, though Harris hasn’t made any public comment about it, experts expect that her administration would support it as well. Meanwhile, a former Trump White House official told Politico this April that Trump — who famously withdrew the U.S. from the Paris Agreement in his first term — would take a “hard-nosed look” at any outcome of the plastics negotiations and be “skeptical that the agreement reached was the best agreement that could have been reached.”

The Biden administration has also taken some positive steps to address plastic pollution domestically, including a ban on the federal procurement of single-use plastics. Experts expect that progress to continue under a Harris administration. In 2011, as California’s attorney general, Harris sued plastic bottle companies over misleading claims that their products were recyclable. As a U.S. senator, she co-sponsored a Democratic bill to phase out unnecessary single-use plastic products.

Trump, meanwhile, does not have a strong track record on plastic. Although he signed a 2019 law to remove and prevent ocean litter, he has taken personal credit for the construction of new plastic manufacturing facilities and derided the idea of banning single-use plastic straws. And Trump’s “drill, baby, drill” agenda could increase the extraction of fossil fuels used to make plastics.

Your Votes

After decades of failed attempts to tackle the climate crisis, Congress finally passed major legislation two years ago with the Inflation Reduction Act. Not a single Republican voted for it. 

Elections aren’t just important for getting the legislative power needed to enact climate policies — they’re also important for implementing them. The IRA and the bipartisan infrastructure law, another key climate-related law, are entering crucial phases for their implementation, particularly the doling out of billions of dollars for clean energy, environmental justice, and climate resiliency. Trump, having vowed to rescind unspent IRA funds if elected, seems poised to hamper the law’s rollout, slowing efforts to get the country using more clean energy.

But it’s a mistake to imagine that only federal elections matter when it comes to climate change. Eliminating greenhouse gases from energy, buildings, transportation, and food systems requires legislation at every level. In Arizona and Montana, for example, voters this year will elect utility commissioners, the powerful, yet largely ignored officials who play a crucial role in whether — and how quickly — the country moves away from fossil fuels. State legislators can also open the door to efforts to get 100 percent clean electricity, as happened in Michigan and Minnesota after the 2022 election. Even in a state like Washington with Democratic Governor Jay Inslee, who once campaigned for the White House on a climate change platform, votes matter — climate action is literally on the ballot in November, when voters could choose to kill the state’s landmark price on carbon pollution.

Depending on what happens with the presidential and congressional races, state and local action might be the best hope for furthering climate policy anyway.

Your Global Outlook

During his first term, Trump pulled the U.S. out of the Paris Agreement, a global commitment to reduce the burning of fossil fuels in an effort to curb the worst impacts of climate change. “I was elected to represent the citizens of Pittsburgh, not Paris,” he said from the Rose Garden of the White House in 2017. Trump didn’t entirely abandon global climate discussions; his administration continued to attend global climate conferences, where it endorsed events on fossil fuels.

The Biden administration rejoined the Paris Agreement and pledged billions of dollars to combat climate change both domestically and abroad, but a second Trump administration would likely undo this progress. Trump says that he would pull out of the Paris Agreement again, and reportedly would also consider withdrawing the U.S. from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, a 1992 treaty that’s the basis for modern global climate talks. Harris is expected, at least, to continue Biden’s policies. Speaking from COP28 in Dubai last year, an annual United Nations climate gathering, she celebrated America’s progress in tackling the climate crisis and petitioned for much more to be done. “In order to keep our critical 1.5 degree-Celsius goal within reach,” she said, “we must have the ambition to meet this moment, to accelerate our ongoing work, increase our investments, and lead with courage and conviction.” 

But both the Trump and Biden administrations achieved record oil and gas production during their time in office, and Harris opposes a ban on fracking. In order to make a dent in the climate crisis, whoever becomes president would have to reject that status quo and put serious money behind global promises to mitigate climate change. Otherwise, climate change-related losses will just continue to mount — already, they are expected to cost $580 billion globally by 2030. 

Featured image: Grist.

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This article was originally published on Grist and is republished here as part of the global journalist collaboration Covering Climate Now.

The post The Climate Stakes of the Harris-Trump Election appeared first on Earth.Org.

The Governor of Minnesota has emerged as one of the country’s most forceful advocates for climate action, enacting dozens of policies to accelerate the transition to clean energy in his home state.

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Climate advocates are rallying behind Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, whom Kamala Harris’s picked as her running mate for November’s presidential election.

Tuesday’s announcement prompted reactions from climate advocates and groups, including political action organization the Sunrise Movement, which praised Walz’s robust environmental record and called the Governor a “climate champion” and a “fighter for working people and young people.”

Former US Vice President and environmentalist Al Gore, who in 2007 won the Nobel Peace Prize for his climate advocacy, wrote in a post on X that Walz’s climate record “make[s] him a valuable asset on an issue that demands urgent action if we want to build a better future for our country.”

“I’ve seen Tim Walz in action and have worked with him. He is a proven leader on climate and knows the issue inside and out,” Mr Gore added.

Since his appointment as Governor, Walz, 60, has been focused on tackling the threats posed by the climate crisis in his state, enacting important legislation to phase out planet-warming fossil fuels and promote clean energy development. When signing a law that would lead Minnesota to 100% carbon-free electricity by 2040 in February of last year, Walz said: “We can’t move too fast when it comes to addressing climate change.” The legislation also requires utilities to create plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from their operations.

This was just one of the many climate initiatives the governor helped steer through the state legislature. In 2021, building on California’s example, Walz adopted stricter vehicle emissions standards, requiring automakers to sell more electric and low-emission vehicles in the state. His administration also provided funding to expand Minnesota’s electric vehicle charging network, including grants for public and workplace charging stations, to decarbonize the transportation sector through zero-emission trucks and buses, and to expand public transit, bike, and pedestrian infrastructure.

Walz also set up the State Competitiveness Fund to help Minnesota businesses and organizations take advantage of new federal funding opportunities, particularly from the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). The US$369 billion legislation passed in 2022 by the Biden administration provides hundreds of billions of dollars in investments and tax credits to accelerate the transition to clean energy, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and support climate change mitigation and adaptation efforts across the US.

If elected to the White House, Walz and Harris would bring a strong climate policy background to the national stage at a critical juncture in the US’s efforts to address the climate crisis, an increasingly urgent threat. The country faces a range of severe impacts like intensifying wildfires, droughts, and extreme weather events. While the Biden administration has made climate change a key priority, pledging to cut carbon dioxide emissions 50% below 2005 levels by 2030, the US is still not on track.

An analysis published last month by the Center for American Progress found that nearly one in four members of Congress – all Republicans – are climate deniers. Combined, these lawmakers received $52 million in lifetime campaign donations from the fossil fuel industry, the same report found. Meanwhile, Trump pledged to be a “dictator” on day one to “drill, drill, drill” and scrap Biden’s most important climate laws if elected.

The post Kamala Harris Chooses ‘Climate Champion’ Tim Walz As VP Pick in US Presidential Election appeared first on Earth.Org.

The controversial ban, first introduced under former Prime Minister David Cameron in 2015, meant an objection from just one person over an onshore wind farm development in England could prevent it from going ahead.

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The de facto ban on new onshore wind projects in the UK has been dropped by the newly elected Labour government, a move that environmentalists and energy experts had long called for.

In a policy paper published Monday, the government reiterated its commitment to doubling onshore wind energy by 2030 – a move which it says would “help boost Britain’s energy independence, save money on energy bills, support high-skilled jobs and tackle the climate crisis” – and announced the removal of barriers that for the past decade hindered the development of new wind infrastructure in the country.

The clampdown on new onshore wind projects was introduced in 2015 by then Prime Minister David Cameron, who said that the country had enough wind projects. At the time, wind accounted for 10% of the total energy mix. Cameron introduced two onshore footnotes to the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) – the rules that govern the planning and development of homes and infrastructure in the UK. The footnotes, which only applied to wind projects – required strong proof that there was no opposition to new wind turbines at the local level, effectively making new projects almost impossible to execute.

“The removal of these tests from planning policy means that onshore wind applications will be treated in the same way as other energy development proposals,” the government said, adding that the changes would take effect immediately.

Wind has grown to be the UK’s largest source of renewable energy and second-largest among low-carbon sources behind just nuclear, accounting for 29.4% of the country’s energy mix in 2023. Dominating the energy market is gas, while coal – which the UK phased out faster than any other G20 nation – represented less than 1%. By October 2024, the nation plans to phase out all remaining coal fired power stations. 

Monday’s announcement was celebrated by environmental campaigners and energy experts.

In a statement released on Monday, RenewableUK’s Chief Executive Dan McGrail expressed delight at the “long overdue” move, adding that public support for onshore wind is “sky-high.” According to the non-profit renewables trade association, delivering 30 gigawatts of onshore wind by the end of the decade could boost the economy by £45 billion (US$57.6 billion) and create about 27,000 jobs.

“Modern turbines are substantially more efficient and powerful than the turbines built in previous decades, so doubling the UK’s onshore wind capacity by 2030 won’t mean doubling the number of turbines in the UK. We can generate more power from fewer new turbines, and we can replace older turbines with far more powerful ones, making the most of our superb natural wind resources,” the statement read.

Greenpeace UK Chief Scientist Doug Parr also celebrated the announcement, saying the long-standing ban was “self-defeating for energy security, costly, and lost opportunities to cut emissions.” The NGO had previously launched a petition urging former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to scrap it.

The Labour Party won the election in a landslide last week, ending 14 years of Conservative rules. Earlier this year, the party’s leader and new Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer announced an £8.3 billion (US$10.5 billion) investment in floating wind farms to enhance energy security and create jobs, furthering their pledge to decarbonize the UK by 2030.

However, Labour’s environmental strategy is not without criticism. The party recently faced backlash after announcing it would markedly scale back its decarbonization plans, reducing the annual allocation from £28 billion to £23.7 billion (US$29.9 billion) over five years. The decision, driven by concerns over fiscal responsibility, reflects Labour’s endeavor to reconcile environmental goals with financial realities, utilizing funds from both borrowing and a windfall tax on oil and gas companies.

The post New UK Labour Government Lifts Onshore Wind Ban, Commits to Doubling Wind Power by 2030 appeared first on Earth.Org.

The People’s Climate Vote is the word’s most extensive public survey on climate change, engaging over 73,000 people across 77 countries.

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Against a backdrop of historic heat and widespread climate impacts, human’s perspective on climate change is shifting, with an increasing number of people globally demanding more adaptation and mitigation action, a new comperehensive global survey has revealed.

Carried out by the UN Development Programme (UNDP) and the University of Oxford, the second edition of the People’s Climate Vote published last week found that an overwhelming majority of people globally are now worried about how climate change will affect their livelihoods and mental health.

Conducted in 87 languages, the survey engaged over 73,000 people from different age groups, cultural and geographical backgrounds across 77 countries, representing 87% of the world’s population.

The survey comes as a pivotal time. 2024 is the biggest global election year of all time, with some 4 billion people – roughly half of the human population – eligible to vote.

An average of 43% of people spanning 89% of countries surveyed said their government has had the biggest impact addressing the climate crisis compared to big businesses (14%), the United Nations (13%), and environmental activists and campaigners (12%).

Four in every five people surveyed (80%) want their countries to do more on climate change. This is particularly true for people living in climate vulnerable regions, with 89% of people living in Least Developed Countries (LDCs) saying they want their country to strenghten its commitments to address the climate crisis. Poor and developing countries historically bear the most brunt despite contributing the least to planet-warming emissions. In contrast, G20 economies – the largest economies in the world – are responsible for about 75-80% of global greenhouse gas emissions.

About 72% of the survey’s participants said they want their country to rapidly move away from planet-warming fossil fuels and embrace clean energy. The majority of people living in the world’s ten largest producers of oil, coal, and gas support a fast transition to renewable energy sources, with the expection of Iraq (43%) and Russia (16%).

The burning of coal, natural gas, and oil for electricity and heat is the single-largest source of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, the primary drivers of global warming by trapping heat in the atmosphere and raising Earth’s surface temperature. Global fossil fuel consumption has more than doubled in the last 50 years, as countries around the world aim to improve their standards of living and economic output. In 2023, all three of the most potent GHGs – carbon dioxide (CO2), methane, and nitrous oxide – reached record highs.

Climate scientists agree that climate change is accelerating faster than expected and affecting all corners of the world.

Temperatures in May were the highest ever recorded for that month, marking one year of consecutive record-breaking temperatures after 2023 went down in history as the hottest year on record. May was also 1.52C above the 1850-1900 pre-industrial average, marking the 11th consecutive month that temperatures breached the 1.5C global warming threshold set in the Paris Agreement. While this does not signal a permanent breach of the critical limit, which scientists say is measured over decades, it sends a clear warning to humanity that we are approaching the point of no return much faster than expected.

As the impacts of a changing climate become more apparent, nearly eight in ten or 78% of people demand more protection from extreme weaher events, which include heatwaves, droughts, heavy downpoars, floods, tropical cyclones, and tornatoes, and 81% want more action on nature.

Many countries endured some of the worst extreme weather events in history in the last few years – from the most destructive wildfire season on record in Canada and Australia to devastating floods in Libya – which experts say were made up to 50 times more likely and intense by climate change – and Pakistan, where thousands of people died and millions were displaced.

An overwhelming majority of people (79%) also said they want richer countries to support poorer nations to address climate change. The latter have for decades demanded climate finance and compensation for the economic, social, and cultural losses and damages caused by anthropogenic climate change – also known as “loss and damage.”

It was only two year ago – during the UN COP27 climate summit in Egypy – that countries finally reached a deal to set up a loss and damage fund to help developing countries deal with the harm caused by global warming. However, to date, total commitments have only amounted to US$661 million, less than 0.2% of the economic and non-economic losses developing countries face every year from global warming, estimated at at least $400 billion per year and expected to grow as the crisis intensifies.

The post From Fossil Fuel Phase Down to Protection of Nature, 80% of People Globally Demand More Action in Largest Climate Survey appeared first on Earth.Org.

Sheinbaum is Mexico’s first female and the most scientifically experienced president. But the lack of a net zero commitment in her roadmap and her support for the construction of new oil refineries raise questions about the former IPCC scientist’s real climate commitments. 

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On June 2, Mexico City’s former mayor Claudia Sheinbaum was elected as the country’s first-female president with 59% of the national vote. 

Born to scientist parents in Mexico City, Sheinbaum appeared set for a brilliant career in science. After pursuing an undergraduate degree in Physics and a master’s degree in energy engineering in her home country, she moved to California to work on her Ph.D. thesis. At the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, where she spent four years during the 1990s, she focused on analyzing energy consumption in Mexico’s buildings and transportation sector. 

In 2007, Sheinbaum joined a panel of Nobel Peace Prize-awarded scientists that compiled the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the most respectable scientific body in the field of climate change assessment. She later also co-authored the Fifth Assessment Report. 

Sheinbaum’s political career began in 2000, when then-mayor Andrés Manuel López Obrador, with whom she shares strong political ties, appointed her as Mexico City’s environmental minister. During this time, the city experienced a notable reduction in air pollution, saw the creation of community ecological reserves, and the introduction of a bus rapid transit system, which has since expanded to seven lines that cross the city of 8.8 million people.

She later served as mayor of the Tlalpan borough from 2015 to 2017 and was elected head of government of Mexico City in 2018, a position that sheheld until she announced her intention to run for the recent presidential election. 

During her years in the city’s top position, Sheinbaum electrified much of the bus system, installed a rooftop solar project at a central market, and introduced new cable-car routes, though she also faced backlash for building a bridge in an ecological zone that damaged wetlands in the historic Xochimilco borough.

Speaking with Inside Climate News, environmental activist at Conexiones Climáticas Claudia Campero highlighted how some of her policies were economically motivated, while the environmental benefits were secondary. Capero was referring in particular to a rainwater capture program in low-income neighborhoods, which aimed at improving the quality of life of marginalized communities. 

“She prioritizes social policy,” the activist said. “The environmental side is there, but the motive of economic growth has more weight in her decision making.”

Sheinbaum’s prominence in the scientific community makes many hopeful that her recent election will translate to climate progress. However, her scientific background will now have to be reconciled and negotiated with the existing political landscape when she enters office.

Besides the lack of extensive climate policies while serving as Mexico City’s mayor, skeptics also point at her long-standing alliance with her populist predecessor and mentor López Obrador, who doubled down on fossil fuels. He boosted oil production in the country by investing billions of dollars to increase power generation by fossil fuel-dependent state energy giants, including oil firm Pemex, one of the top ten firms globally to have contributed to global carbon emissions.

In contrast with her pledge to boost renewable energy by as much as 50% by end of her term in 2030, Sheinbaum vowed to continue his predecessor’s policies and stay true to his commitment to oil and gas production, prompting many to think the clean energy transition is not her priority after all.  

A Warming Nation

Mexico is grappling with a severe drought that began in 2011 and has progressively worsened as a consequence of climate change. 2022 data suggests that up to 71% of the national territory has high or very high water stress. Its capital Mexico City – along with many other urban areas – has suffered a long-running water crisis, with experts saying it may be just a few months away from running out of water altogether.

The long-running drought is intensified by heatwaves, a direct consequence of anthropogenic climate change and reckless human actions, including greenhouse gas emissions and deforestation. According to the National Forest Monitoring System, between 2001 and 2022, an annual average of 208,746 hectares of forest vegetation was lost nation-wide. This, combined with policies aimed at increasing fossil fuel production in the country, have contributed to rising carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. 

The country remains highly reliant on planet-warming fossil fuels, with oil and natural gas accounting for 44% and 39%, respectively, of the total energy supply in 2022.

According to Climate Action Tracker, Mexico’s climate policies “continue to go backwards, as fossil fuel use is prioritized and climate-related policies and institutions dismantled.” The organization ranks progress on its climate target of cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 35% by the decade’s end as “highly insufficient.” The country is also one of the few in the world without a net zero target in place.

With a steep decrease in forest area and a dramatic increase in carbon dioxide emissions, the country is now unsurprisingly grappling with even more serious climate-related consequences, and the situation is expected to worsen in the years to come.

A recent heatwave that has brought scorching temperatures to North and Central America has killed at least 125 people and led to hundreds of cases of heat stroke, power outages, wildfires, and mass die-off of endangered monkeys in Mexico. An assessment published earlier this week revealed that the heatwave was made at least 35 times more likely to occur due to fossil fuel-driven warming. 

“The results of our study should be taken as another warning that our climate is heating to dangerous levels,” said Izidine Pinto, Researcher at the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute. “Potentially deadly and record-breaking temperatures are occurring more and more frequently in the US, Mexico and Central America due to climate change. As long as humans fill the atmosphere with fossil fuel emissions, the heat will only get worse – vulnerable people will continue to die and the cost of living will continue to increase.”

Climate stakes in Mexico have never been higher. All eyes are not on its new climate-savvy president to turn that knowledge into science-informed policies.

Featured image: Wikimedia Commons.

The post Claudia Sheinbaum: Climate Champion or Fossil Fuel Friend?  appeared first on Earth.Org.

Between April and June 2024, nearly one billion people will be eligible to vote in the world’s largest democratic exercise. India’s general election unfolds against a backdrop of extreme drought, melting glaciers, forest fires, deadly floods, and prolonged heatwaves. Since voting began, parts of the country have been battling with scorching heat. But while hot weather is the norm for the 1.4 billion people living in India, the intensity and frequency of heatwaves are on the rise, partly fuelled by climate change. This begs the question: Is climate change on Indian voters’ radar?

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India’s Climate Manifesto

Climate change appeared in the election manifestos of major national parties for the first time in 2019. In the 2024 election manifesto, both India’s ruling party – the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) – and the opposition Congress Party have included several pledges across different sectors that could be filed under green policies, renewable energy targets, and pollution-free mandates. However, the word “climate” is hardly mentioned in either manifesto. 

As per its manifesto, the BJP – the party of India’s current Prime minister Narendra Modi – is striving to achieve energy independence by 2047; meet the 500GW target for renewable energy by 2030; and establish India as a global manufacturing hub for wind, solar, and green hydrogen technologies. The party’s strategy to achieve these ambitious targets includes reducing petroleum imports, focusing on electric mobility, expanding charging stations, increasing renewable energy production, and enhancing energy efficiency. The party also announced it will launch a National Atmospheric Mission to make India “weather-ready” and “climate-smart.”

According to its manifesto, on the other hand, the Congress Party plans to set up two specialized funds: a green transition fund to finance the clean energy transition and a Green New Deal investment programme that focuses on renewable energy, sustainable infrastructure, and the creation of green jobs. The party also promises to bring on an “independent” Environment Protection and Climate Change Authority to monitor and enforce environmental standards at the national and state level. Transitioning from the National Action Plan on Climate Change to a National Climate Resilience Development Mission, the party says, will help integrate climate-positive actions in all sectors of development.

India’s leadership at the G20 and prominence in international forums such as the UN Conference of the Parties (COP) influence the domestic political narrative and national policies towards India’s own climate goals. However, even though both parties have included climate issues in their Manifestos, they both failed to promote their climate pledges as a central issue in the stump speeches and rallies throughout the campaign season.

Climate Change in India

For years, India has been battling with the devastating consequences of anthropogenic climate change and currently ranks ninth out of the world’s top-50 states most at risk from climate change hazards.

According to the National Centre for Science and Environment’s 2023 climate breakdown, India had its warmest-ever August and September in 122 years. The country also suffered an extreme weather event on 318 days last year, which claimed a total of 3,287 lives, affected 2.21 million hectares of crop area, damaged 86,432 houses, and killed nearly 125,000 animals. All 36 states and Union territories were affected, with Himachal Pradesh recording the highest number of extreme weather events (149), followed by Madhya Pradesh (141). Kerala and Uttar Pradesh were next with 119 days each. 

The country also saw 208 of floods and landslides triggered by heavy rains and heatwaves lasting for a total of 49 days. Eastern parts of the country were also battered by Cyclone Michaung in December, which killed at least nine and submerged parts of Chennai.

More on the topic: 5 Biggest Environmental Issues in India in 2024

Another study published last year also pointed out that extreme weather events have led to precarious and informal work conditions, domestic violence, child marriages, and further inequality in low-income groups. In Ahmedabad, a city in western India, people living in slums and informal housing face greater exposure to extreme temperatures, inequalities, and an increase in several heat-related deaths. Bangalore, India’s Silicon Valley, is battling with widespread water shortages, after receiving little rainfall the past year due to climate change and rampant urbanization.

In 2021, the country was also among the world’s most polluted in the world, with an annual average PM2.5 level of about 58.1 µg/m³.

What Are Indian Voters’ Priorities?

After China and the US, India is the world’s third-largest emitter of greenhouse gasses and the fastest-growing major economy. Unlike its Western counterparts, where elections can be significantly influenced by candidates’ climate agendas, the climate is not featured as a major issue in India’s election.

In a Lokniti-CSDS pre-poll survey conducted in 2023, voters indicated unemployment and inflation as the most important issues. According to the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy, the unemployment rate and inflation in March stood at 7.6% and 4.77%.

It is true, however, that urban voters are becoming more sensitive to climate change mitigation efforts and sustainable development promises as life as they know it has become heavily intertwined with environmental issues such as extreme rain, heat, and pollution due to inadequate waste management and traffic. The same goes for younger generations. This year, 18 million young Indians will be voting for the first time. For them, climate change is the third-most important societal issue, according to a 2023 Gen Z and Millennial Survey published by Deloitte.

Researchers also argue that many of the issues identified as pressing by Indian voters, such as unemployment, education, healthcare, economic growth, and caste inequality, are all linked to the climate crisis. Previous studies, for example, have shown that India’s frequent heatwaves are a growing burden on its economy and public health resources. It is estimated that 8% of India’s GDP was lost due to the climate crisis in 2022. In that same year, research showed that heatwaves made nearly 90% of Indians “more vulnerable to public health issues, food shortages and increased risks of death.”

You might also like: Elections 2024: How Much Do Voters Care About Climate?

Awareness and understanding of the climate crisis also depend on where people live. For example, people living in coastal areas such as Kerala, which is subject to frequent excessive rainfall, floods, and landslides, express a greater degree of concern. 

“My wants are simple, I want soft clean water, cheap electricity, and affordable healthcare,” Khairu Nisa, a single mother and tailor living in a small settlement in the southern Indian state of Tamilnadu, told Earth.Org. Her home was flooded and damaged in the Michang Cyclone last December. In the summer months, she complains of the unbearable heat in her home every year. “Fan is not enough, I cannot afford an AC. It is very difficult to work and make a living in this difficult weather,” she said.

Extreme weather events have also been shown to affect political outcomes.

A 2022 study on political participation in India found evidence that “areas with greater cumulative exposure to extreme temperatures experience an increase in voter turnout and a change in the composition of the pool of candidates who stand for election.” 

In particular, the study has found that the negative effect of climate change on agricultural productivity can affect voter turnout, particularly in rural areas, and increase the chances that winning candidates have an agricultural background and invest more in mitigation measures aimed at protecting the agricultural sector. 

All Eyes on India

The outcome of India’s election holds immense significance not only for its own citizens but also for the global community. As the world’s largest democracy, all eyes are fixed upon this nation to witness how its new leader will confront the pressing challenges posed by the rapidly deteriorating climate crisis. With environmental concerns reaching critical levels, the decisions made by India’s elected officials will have far-reaching implications, not just within its borders but also for the future of our planet. 

The post India General Election: Is a Climate Agenda on the Cards?  appeared first on Earth.Org.

Speaking in London on Wednesday, Simon Stiell appealed to big finance players to boost climate investments and on governments to put forward bolder national climate plans.

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In a pivotal year for democracy, where roughly half of the human population is called to the polls, the United Nations climate chief called on citizens to “raise their voices” to demand bolder climate action.

With the relentless rise in air and sea temperatures globally, time is running out to avert the worst consequences of climate change. 

Extreme weather events are costing millions of lives and billions of dollars to the world’s economies, with no country spared. A recent analysis by Zurich-based reinsurance company Swiss Re’s found that climate-change triggered natural disasters, excluding heatwaves, cost the global economy US$200 billion every year, with the US and the Philippines paying the highest annual price in relation to their gross domestic product (GDP).

Speaking at London’s Chatham House on Wednesday, UN Climate Change Executive Secretary Simon Stiell laid out key interventions needed ahead of the next COP summit and their long-term significance.

“The next two years are essential to save the planet,” Stiell said, stressing that cutting fossil fuel pollution and investing in climate mitigation and adaptation will determine which countries will “rise up the ladder [of living standards] or fall.”

Cutting greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels has proven challenging and progress has been slow. NOAA’ latest data, published earlier this week, confirmed that levels of all three main planet-warming, human-caused greenhouse gases – carbon dioxide (CO2), methane, and nitrous oxide – reached record highs in 2023, albeit growing at a slower pace than previous years.

Current national climate plans will “barely cut emissions at all by 2030,” Stiell said, stressing that a “new generation of national climate plans” ahead of the next round of UN climate talks scheduled for November is needed for a “chance to make greenhouse gas emissions tumble.”

Historically, G20 countries have been the main source of global emissions – accounting for around 80% of the total – and it is their responsibility, Stiell said, to “be at core of the solution” and work towards speeding up the phase-out of fossil fuels.

The Unequivocal Role of Climate Finance

For a chance to bring global temperatures down, cutting fossil fuels must happen concurrently with the rollout of clean energy technologies and resilient infrastructure, Stiell said, something that only a “quantum leap in climate finance” – which is “both essential and entirely achievable” –  will help developing countries achieve.

“It’s time to shift those dollars from the energy and infrastructure of the past, towards that of a cleaner, more resilient future…And to ensure that the poorest and most vulnerable countries benefit.”

Despite poor and vulnerable countries raising their voices for decades to demand financial support to deal with the climate crisis, many believe that wealthy nations are not doing enough, with finance flowing still far from what is needed. The establishment of a Loss and Damage Fund in 2022 and its operationalization, hailed “historic,” at COP28 last year marked a significant step forward in the fight for climate justice. However, contributions to the fund still fall significantly short of what is needed to cover the real needs of developing countries, estimated at at least $400 billion per year and expected to grow as the crisis intensifies.

You might also like: Climate Justice and Loss and Damage: A Look At What COP28 Meant for Historical Responsibility in Climate Action

In his speech, Stiell called on key finance players – including the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as well as the G7 and G20 leadership – to push for a bolder climate finance deal at COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan, saying it would not only benefit developing countries but also help protect global supply chains all economies depend on. 

The deal, Stiell said, will have to satisfy four key requirements: more concessional finance, especially for vulnerable economies, new sources of international climate finance, a reform of development banks to make them work better for developing countries and take climate into consideration in their decision-making process, as well as debt relief for the countries in need to “give them the fiscal space for climate investment.”

A Pivotal Year

Recent polls have demonstrated that voters increasingly want to see their governments take bolder climate action. 

Addressing the billions of people eligible to vote around the world this year, Stiell said their voice mattered like never before, stressing that only addressing the climate crisis will allow us to end poverty, hunger, and other pressing social and humanitarian problems affecting our societies.

“Business-as-usual will further entrench the gross inequalities between the world’s richest and poorest countries and communities that unchecked climate impacts are making much worse…  If you want bolder climate action, now is the time to make yours count,” he said.

Featured image: UNclimatechange/Flickr

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As the United Kingdom gears up for its forthcoming general election, attention is increasingly focused on the nation’s environmental issues and the climate agendas of political parties. With growing anticipation and voters seeking clear commitments on climate action, the electoral landscape is poised for a crucial showdown that will shape the country’s environmental direction and influence its role in the global fight against climate change.

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Excitement in the UK is palpable as the country readies itself for the imminent general election, set to take place no later than January 2025. Amidst the political discourse, conversations are shifting beyond conventional topics like the economy, healthcare, and immigration to underscore the critical imperative for climate action. At the same time, there is also a prevalent concern about the potential impact of transitioning to net zero, particularly in terms of living costs. Therefore, achieving the optimal balance that caters to the majority of society’s needs is a significant challenge for all parties and policymakers vying for success in the electoral arena.

The UK is currently battling with a myriad of environmental issues. 2023 was the country’s second-hottest year on record, with a mean temperature of 9.97C. Eight out of 12 months were warmer than average – with June marking the hottest June ever recorded “by a wide margin,” according to the Met Office, the national weather service. September also saw its hottest day, with temperatures peaking at 33.5C. The Met Office predicts that climate change will affect the UK by raising summer temperatures by 1-6C and reducing rainfall by up to 60% by 2070, resulting in more intense rainfall and heightened flood risks.

Biodiversity loss is another pressing problem in the UK, with a September 2023 assessment suggesting that one in six species in the country is at risk of extinction due to habitat loss, extreme weather events, and other human-induced pressures. The analysis found that wildlife in the UK has declined on average by 19% since widespread monitoring began in 1970, though evidence suggests that biodiversity had already been “highly depleted” by reckless human activity, including traditional farming practices and rapid urban development on land as well as unsustainable fishing, marine development, and climate change at sea.

Despite efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the impacts of climate change are expected to continue, highlighting the urgent need for adaptation measures to protect people, homes, businesses, and ecosystems. As per the recent assessment by the UK’s Climate Change Committee, the country’s current climate adaptation plan is inadequate, lacking the necessary scale, ambition, and funding necessary to effectively tackle the challenges presented by climate change.

UK Election: How Much Do UK Voters Care About Climate?

As candidates gear up for the campaign trail, the green agenda has quickly risen to prominence as a solid focal point. 

A report from Greenpeace UK, based on a survey conducted between August and September 2023, indicated that climate and environmental policies play a crucial role in influencing voter preferences, especially in key battleground areas like the Blue Wall and marginal constituencies. 

A survey published in December 2023 revealed that 41% of respondents are more inclined to support a political party that pledges robust action on climate change, while 40% believe that the government’s postponement or cancellation of certain net zero policies has negatively impacted Britain’s reputation abroad. Another 2023 Copper Consultancy report found approximately 10% of individuals intending to vote for the Conservative Party cited climate change as the most crucial concern. In comparison, this figure was 12% for the Labour Party and notably higher at 27% for the Green Party.

According to Asset Finance International, the demand among small businesses in the country for clearer sustainability guidance from the next government, driven by concerns over recent policy reversals and a perceived lack of emphasis on environmental issues, underscoring the call for improved leadership and support in this area.

Ahead of the general election, the forthcoming local elections, set to take place in May, are poised to gauge public sentiment. Voters are evidently seeking clear proposals and strong commitments from candidates, emphasizing the need for substantial measures to address environmental concerns.

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Conservative Government’s Environmental Challenges

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s Conservative government stands at the forefront of this electoral battleground, facing challenges due to recent decisions that have halted crucial climate initiatives. In his speech on net zero last September, the PM outlined a strategy centered on promoting a pragmatic and transparent approach, alleviating burdens on families, advancing green industries, and fostering innovation in new technologies to attain the net zero target by 2050. 

In February, the government announced that the UK had successfully halved its emissions between 1990 and 2022 while experiencing significant economic growth, outperforming other major economies like France and the US. This achievement is largely attributed to the transition from coal to renewables, with over 40% of the country’s electricity now sourced from clean energy sources. What’s more, the UK has consistently exceeded its carbon reduction targets, demonstrating its commitment to combating climate change and achieving net zero emissions.

However, Rishi Sunak’s concurrent decisions, such as delaying the ban on new petrol and diesel cars and slowing the phase-out of gas boilers, have drawn strong criticism from environmental organizations, opposition parties, and segments of the public. Sunak’s move to scrap regulations targeting heat pump installations and fines for heating system manufacturers also jeopardizes the government’s commitment to achieving net-zero emissions by 2050 and undermines its global credibility, especially following the UK’s hosting of the COP26 climate conference in 2021. 

In response to these moves, the Tories’ perceived prioritization of short-term economic interests over long-term environmental sustainability has sparked intense scrutiny and criticism, fueling skepticism about its real commitment to tackling the climate crisis.

Labour Party’s Climate Agenda

On the other hand, opposition parties, led by the Labour Party, have exploited the Conservative government’s vulnerabilities to advocate for more ambitious climate policies. 

During the annual Mais lecture in March 2024, Labour’s shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves laid out the party’s vision, stressing the significance of prioritizing the battle against global warming and integrating environmental sustainability into broader economic growth strategies.

The party, led by Sir Keir Starmer, announced an 8.3 billion pound (US$10.5 billion) investment in floating wind farms to enhance energy security and create jobs, furthering their pledge to decarbonize the UK by 2030, a move that contrasts with the Conservative Party’s target of achieving a net zero energy supply by 2035. Alongside the Tories, Labour’s environmental strategy is also facing criticism from other parties and voters. Amidst this, Starmer’s recent move to markedly scale back the party’s decarbonization plans, reducing the annual allocation from 28 billion pound to 23.7 billion pound ($35.3 billion to $29.9 billion) over five years, has sparked considerable attention and debate. The decision, driven by concerns over fiscal responsibility, reflects Labour’s endeavor to reconcile environmental goals with financial realities, utilizing funds from both borrowing and a windfall tax on oil and gas companies.

While Labour grapples with internal debates over the feasibility and scale of its proposed decarbonization plans, it remains resolute in its commitment to aggressive climate targets, positioning itself as a viable alternative to the Conservative government’s environmental track record. The party’s emphasis on investing in renewable energy, green infrastructure, and sustainable industries resonates with voters increasingly concerned about the environmental and economic implications of inaction on climate change.

Diverse Environmental Landscape

The UK’s environmental agenda extends beyond the traditional dichotomy of Conservative versus Labour, with smaller parties and civil society groups exerting considerable influence. The Green Party, in particular, champions radical climate policies, castigating both major parties for what it perceives as inadequate action on environmental issues, and wins. It also maintains high favorability rankings in political party polls. Mainstream parties’ stances, particularly if adversarial or accommodative toward green issues, impact Green party support, with accommodative positions benefiting new parties and reinforcing established ones.

With mounting public awareness and concern regarding climate change, these smaller parties and grassroots movements possess the potential to disrupt the political landscape and shape the narrative surrounding environmental policies. Their advocacy for bold and transformative measures, such as divesting from fossil fuels, implementing carbon pricing mechanisms, and prioritizing environmental justice, adds depth and diversity to the discourse on climate action.

Importance of Voter Choice

The imminent general election presents voters with a pivotal directive: to endorse competing visions for the nation’s environmental future. Beyond mere rhetoric, the election serves as a referendum on tangible policy proposals and the credibility of parties’ commitments to addressing climate change. 

Voters increasingly scrutinize parties’ environmental platforms, demanding concrete plans and measurable outcomes rather than vague promises and greenwashing. The outcome of the election hinges on the electorate’s assessment of which party offers the most credible and effective strategy for mitigating climate change and transitioning to a sustainable, low-carbon economy.

Global Implications

The outcome of the election also holds profound implications not only for domestic policy but also for the UK’s standing on the global stage. As nations worldwide grapple with the urgent demand of mitigating climate change, the UK’s credibility as one of the climate frontrunners hangs in the balance. A failure to deliver on ambitious climate commitments could tarnish the country’s position in international climate negotiations and undermine efforts to galvanize global action. Conversely, bold and decisive action by the incoming government could reinvigorate international momentum towards achieving the goals of the Paris Agreement and averting catastrophic climate change.

Voters Taking Initiative: Empowering Change

While the UK voters acknowledge the importance of climate change and achieving net zero, there remains a lack of urgency in embracing climate targets, primarily due to concerns about bearing the associated costs of a fully green agenda.

Firmly speaking, irrespective of which party wins the election battle, society must take initiatives into its own hands if it desires to create a sustainable and healthy environment for its future. It is essential for citizens to play an active role in compelling politicians to consider not only immediate profits and welfare but also to devise long-term strategies for the nation and its people to thrive in improved planetary conditions, even if it entails enduring short-term inconveniences and costs.

Ultimately, UK businesses and corporations have the opportunity to proactively tackle the climate crisis and champion a sustainable future by taking decisive action. This could involve investing in renewable energy and energy efficiency measures, advocating for policies that promote renewable energy adoption, establishing targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, committing to operational carbon neutrality objectives, and engaging in voluntary carbon credit trading initiatives between firms. 

They can also lobby for government regulations that tax or cap carbon emissions and encourage the trading of carbon credits. Moreover, they can actively participate in global cooperation initiatives like the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Paris Agreement, playing a role in shaping policies for a sustainable future.

Individually, people wield considerable influence over the environment through their daily decisions. Making sustainable choices can have a profound impact, including reducing energy consumption by switching off lights and electronics when not in use, opting for energy-efficient appliances, utilizing carpooling or public transportation, and incorporating renewable energy sources like solar panels.

Furthermore, individuals can reduce waste by adopting practices like recycling, composting, and reusing items instead of disposing of them. They can also support eco-friendly products and services, such as locally sourced foods, organic products, and sustainable fashion brands, thus promoting a more sustainable lifestyle. By taking these intentional steps, individuals play an active role in advancing environmental sustainability and combating climate change.

Conclusion

The upcoming general election represents the next juncture in the UK’s environmental strategy. To show their dedication, leaders must prioritize actions that align with the Greening Government Commitments (GGCs) framework for 2021 to 2025, which includes targets on greenhouse gas emissions, waste and water consumption, procurement, nature recovery, climate adaptation, and Information and communications technology (ICT). It is also imperative to address the disproportionate impact of climate change on marginalized communities, ensure a just transition for workers in carbon-intensive industries, and promote equitable access to clean air, water, and green spaces.

By centering environmental justice in their climate agendas, policymakers can work towards building a more inclusive and sustainable future for all members of society in the UK. Voters can also hold candidates accountable for their commitments to environmental justice and advocate for policies that prioritize the needs and voices of vulnerable communities in the fight against climate change. 

It is clear that public support for achieving net zero in the UK is strong, emphasizing the necessity of transparently outlining both the challenges and benefits while acknowledging that the transition will require time, contributions from all sectors, and individual efforts.

As voters, businesses can take sustainability initiatives by embracing renewable energy and advocating for policy changes, while individuals can wield their influence through everyday eco-conscious choices, collectively propelling environmental efforts forward and combating the looming threat of climate change.

Featured image: Number 10/Flickr

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