Up until the very last question of the debate between U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump Tuesday night, American voters heard little about fossil fuels and the climate, other than arguing over which presidential candidate is more committed to continuing fracking and its high rate of planet-heating methane emissions.
"One hour in. Still no climate questions," said journalist Emily Atkin at 10:00 pm.
But campaigners said that the brief coverage of energy and the climate emergency in the debate—which took place days after scientists reported the summer of 2024 was the hottest on record—made clearer than ever that if given a second term in office, Trump would fulfill the promise he made to oil executives earlier this year to slash the Biden-Harris' administration's climate regulations and clean energy development in favor of expanding oil and gas drilling.
Trump attacked the Biden-Harris administration for rescinding a key permit for the Keystone XL pipeline and bragged about getting "the oil business going like nobody has ever done before."
But JL Andrepont, a campaigner and analyst at 350 Action, said Harris' promises to continue fracking and statement boasting that she has helped oversee "the largest increase in domestic oil production in history" left much to be desired for U.S. voters, a majority of whom believe policymakers must do more to address the climate emergency.
"The climate crisis worsens daily, and yet Trump and VP Harris debated for 90 minutes and climate change was only mentioned at the end," said Andrepont. "We'll be upfront—the only way to ensure a safe and affordable future for Americans and beyond is to transition swiftly and justly from all fossil fuels, including fracked gas, and to renewable energy."
But while "Trump is singing 'drill baby drill' and Big Oil is holding up the mic," added Andrepont, Harris "knows that the climate crisis is real and already affecting far too many communities."
They suggested that choosing between Trump and Harris is a matter of choosing which president climate campaigners would rather push and negotiate with in order to expand renewable energy in the U.S., protect people from pollution and its threats to public health, and cut the country's greenhouse gas emissions.
"VP Harris is the only candidate who believes in climate change or even claims to represent the people, and we will hold her accountable to what that means. But we must fight for that chance," they said.
Allie Rosenbluth, campaign manager at Oil Change U.S., added that Harris must fulfill her promise to debate viewers that as president, she would "chart a course for the future and not go backwards to the past."
"That means taking decisive action to end fossil fuels and ensuring a just transition to renewable energy," said Rosenbluth. "We need a climate president—one who will invest in clean energy, end fossil fuel subsidies, and phase out fossil fuels to protect the communities most exposed to oil and gas pollution and the climate crisis. It's time for Harris to show she can be that president.”
Rosenbluth was among those who noted that Harris' comments on fracking, which she said she would allow to continue in Pennsylvania, where the debate took place, showed her willingness to take a "dangerous [position] that will keep us on the path towards catastrophic climate impacts and continue exposing frontline communities to deadly levels of fossil fuel pollution."
As Harris reminded voters that the Inflation Reduction Act, one of President Joe Biden's signature laws, expanded leases for fracking, the cancer-causing chemicals used in the oil and gas extraction method and its release of planet-heating methane went unmentioned.
Also ignored was the fact that polls in 2020 and 2021 showed majorities of Pennsylvanians opposed fracking.
What Harris could have said, Elizabeth Sawin of the Multisolving Institute wrote, was: "We are going to ban fracking because it is bad for air, water, people, and climate. Then we are going to take care of the people who are employed in that sector, helping them re-skill for jobs in the clean economy with good healthcare, childcare, and pay."
In a move that one climate leader said summed up "the American mainstream media's approach to the issue," co-moderator Linsey Davis of ABC News asked the candidates in the debate's final moments what they would each do to fight climate change.
Trump said nothing about the climate emergency in response to the question—instead accusing Biden of sending manufacturing jobs overseas and alluding to a debunked claim about money the president's son received from the wife of a Russian official.
Harris noted that Trump has previously called the climate crisis "a hoax" and acknowledged people who have faced the destruction of extreme weather in the U.S., and pointed to the investments the Biden administration has made in "a clean energy economy."
While Trump made clear that he would "give oil and gas CEOs exactly what they want," said Stevie O'Hanlon, communications director for the Sunrise Movement, Harris overall "missed a critical opportunity to lay out a stark contrast with Trump and show young voters that she will stand up to Big Oil and stop the climate crisis."
The Sunrise Movement has not endorsed Harris but has launched a voter outreach campaign supporting Harris, with a plan to knock on 1.5 million doors in swing states, and O'Hanlon reported that "we hear people asking every day, 'What are Democrats going to do for us?'"
"Young voters want more from Harris. We want to see a real plan that meets the scale and urgency of this crisis. Seventy-eight percent of young voters in key swing states say climate change is a major issue shaping their vote," said O'Hanlon. "This election is going to be incredibly close... To win, Harris needs to show young people she will fight for us."
