Harris Urged to 'Absolutely Go After Trump for Being in the Pocket of Big Oil'

Noting former U.S. President Donald Trump's coziness with the fossil fuel industry and the fact that an overwhelming majority of voters want politicians to tackle its greed, one prominent climate campaigner urged Vice President Kamala Harris—the Democratic nominee—to highlight her Republican opponent's Big Oil ties during Tuesday night's debate.

"Harris should absolutely go after Trump for being in the pocket of Big Oil," Fossil Free Media director Jamie Henn said on social media, adding that "89% of Americans want politicians to crack down on Big Oil price gouging."

In a separate post, Henn urged ABC News, which is hosting the first—and likely only—2024 presidential debate, to ask the candidates about the climate emergency.

"Ninety-nine percent of Americans have experienced some form of extreme weather this year," he wrote. "If ABC News doesn't ask about the climate crisis this evening, it's journalistic malpractice."

On Tuesday, a trio of Democratic U.S. lawmakers called on fossil fuel executives to comply with a request for "information regarding quid pro quo solicitations" from former U.S. President Donald Trump, who earlier this year promised to gut climate regulations if they donated $1 billion to his Republican presidential campaign.

Climate campaigners have been warning of the dangers of a second term for Trump, who during his previous administration rolled back regulations protecting the climate, environment, and biodiversity, resulting in increased pollution and premature deaths and fueling catastrophic planetary heating.

"If a Trump administration was merely going to be a four-year interregnum, it would be annoying. But in fact it comes at precisely the moment when we need, desperately, acceleration," 350.org co-founder Bill McKibben wrote in a Guardian opinion article last week.

"The world's climate scientists have done their best to set out a timetable: Cut emissions in half by 2030 or see the possibilities of anything like the Paris pathway, holding temperature increases to 1.5°C above preindustrial levels, disappear," he continued. "That cut is on the bleeding edge of the technically possible, but only if everyone is acting in good faith. And the next presidential term will end in January of 2029, which is 11 months before 2030."

"If we elect Donald Trump, we may feel the effects not for years, and not for a generation," McKibben added. "We may read our mistake in the geological record a million years hence. This one really counts."