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"This election is going to be incredibly close," said one Sunrise Movement organizer. "To win, Harris needs to show young people she will fight for us."
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.""We are shutting down—not building—coal and nuclear plants," the German foreign ministry said. "Coal will be off the grid by 2038 at the latest."
The German foreign ministry on Wednesday issued a rejoinder to Republican nominee Donald Trump's debate claim that Germany had reverted back to a "normal" energy policy after, as he implied, failing to transition away from fossil fuels.
Near the end of the televised presidential debate, Trump addressed Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee, saying:
"You believe in things that the American people don't believe in. You believe in things like we're not going to frack. We're not going to take fossil fuel. We're not going to do, things that are going to make this country strong, whether you like it or not. Germany tried that and within one year they were back to building normal energy plants."
The Germans replied forcefully and included a snarky reference to Trump's baseless claim, made earlier in the debate, that immigrants were eating Americans' pets.
"Like it or not: Germany’s energy system is fully operational, with more than 50% renewables," the German foreign ministry, which is led by Annalena Baerbock of the country's green party as part of a coalition arrangement, wrote on social media. "And we are shutting down—not building—coal and nuclear plants. Coal will be off the grid by 2038 at the latest. PS: We also don't eat cats and dogs."
Like it or not: Germany’s energy system is fully operational, with more than 50% renewables. And we are shutting down – not building – coal & nuclear plants. Coal will be off the grid by 2038 at the latest. PS: We also don’t eat cats and dogs. #Debate2024 pic.twitter.com/PiDO98Vxfo
— GermanForeignOffice (@GermanyDiplo) September 11, 2024
"The former president is not famous for his grasp of the finer details of European energy policy," Bernd Radowitz wrote Wednesday in Recharge, a trade news publication.
Radowitz and other commentators took Trump's "normal" to mean fossil fuel-driven energy production.
"As usual with Trump, it takes some patience to interpret his incoherent line of argument, but what most U.S. viewers and potential voters likely understood from this statement is that Germany tried to ditch fossil fuels, but within a year had to give that up. The assumption here is also that Trump by 'normal energy plants' meant fossil-fired generation."
Germany has since 2010 undertaken an Energiewiende aimed at drawing down on fossil fuel use and nuclear-powered energy and ramping up renewables. The transition plan hit a rough patch in 2022 following the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Russia had supplied more than half of Germany's natural gas, as well as some of its oil and coal. German authorities turned some nuclear plants back on, added more coal consumption into the energy mix, and imported more natural gas from elsewhere, drawing criticism from climate campaigners.
However, those changes were meant to be temporary and Germany has since made progress on implementing its green transition plans. In March, the government declared itself on target to reach its 2030 climate goals. Over 60% of the country's electricity was powered by renewables in the first half of this year, a marked increase from 2022.
The foreign ministry's social media post had been viewed by over 1 million people as of Wednesday morning. It was not entirely clear why the ministry raised Trump's pet remarks, which were seemingly aimed at immigrants of color from low-income countries. Trump's claim, which The New York Times called "false and outlandish," was based on a rumor that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, were eating pets for sustenance. Trump's running mate, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), had spread the racist rumors on Monday.
As president, Trump had a scratchy relationship with Germany, which he frequently criticized for its export surplus to the U.S. and its lack of defense spending. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, of the center-left Social Democratic Party, made remarks in July that indicated that he hoped Harris would win the election. Scholz, who's held office since 2021, had last year endorsed President Joe Biden for reelection, speaking in unusually direct terms about the U.S. race.
"We deserve a future that protects our families and our planet, not one that fuels further destruction," one frontline advocate said.
A coalition of more than 250 climate, environmental, and frontline community organizations on Monday urged U.S. President Joe Biden and Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm to reject all requests for approval to export liquefied natural gas to non-fair trade agreement countries.
The demand came in the form of a letter following a recent ruling by Trump-appointed District Judge James D. Cain Jr. to lift a pause that Biden's Department of Energy had placed on new LNG export approvals while it updates the criteria it uses to determine whether these exports are in the public interest. It also comes a week after the DOE signed off on the export of LNG from an offshore New Fortress Energy plant near Altamira, Mexico.
"After the hottest summer on record, on track to be the hottest year, it's clear that expanding climate-heating gas exports is not in the public interest," Lauren Parker, an attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity's Climate Law Institute, said in a statement. "There's no reason on Earth to approve more LNG exports that lock in decades of damage to the climate, human communities, and imperiled species like Rice's whales. The Department of Energy must reject every single one."
"With climate-induced disasters becoming a regular part of our lives, it's hard to understand how anyone can prioritize fossil gas exports over our health and safety."
The Center for Biological Diversity is one of the many signatories of Monday's letter, backed by dozens of large national groups as well as scores of smaller, more local organizations. Other groups include Earthworks, Food and Water Watch, Oil Change International, the Sunrise Movement, Public Citizen, several branches of 350.org and Extinction Rebellion, Port Arthur Community Action Network, and the Vessel Project of Louisiana.
In the letter, the groups applauded the administration for instituting the pause on approvals in the first place and for acknowledging that the data it used to determine whether exports were in the public interest was "outdated and insufficient."
Since the court ruling leaves the department without a deadline for updating its data, the groups urged the DOE "to continue seeking the best available information on the impact of LNG exports on the public, the environment, and economy."
"When the department completes its analyses, the weight of evidence will make it clear that new LNG exports are not in the public interest and that all pending applications to export LNG must be rejected," the groups wrote.
With the world "on the verge" of exceeding the 1.5°C limit enshrined in the 2015 Paris agreement, the coalition warned against new infrastructure and export policies that will only exacerbate the global emissions crisis at a critical moment in history.
"The United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has warned that global greenhouse gas emissions must peak in the next year, and then steeply decline, for our planet to have the best chance of avoiding this fate," the letter reads. "The only way world leaders can avoid this moral and political failure is to work together to end fossil fuel production."
This goal has been hampered by the record rise in U.S. gas production facilitated by the fracking boom. Whereas global gas production had been predicted to be on the wane, it is now expanding instead. At the same time, new research has shown that, due to methane leaks, gas is not a "bridge fuel" to cleaner energy but in fact just as detrimental to the climate as coal.
Another major concern raised by LNG opponents is the local pollution generated by export facilities. Many of these new facilities are located in, under construction in, or slated for the Gulf South, which is already overburdened by toxic emissions from oil, gas, and petrochemical production.
"As a mom living in a community surrounded by industry, I feel the weight of every decision made about our environment," Vessel Project founder and director Roishetta Ozane said in a statement. "With climate-induced disasters becoming a regular part of our lives, it's hard to understand how anyone can prioritize fossil gas exports over our health and safety. The Department of Energy has the power to reject these LNG export permits, and it's crucial they do so. We deserve a future that protects our families and our planet, not one that fuels further destruction."
The letter suggests the broad environmental movement, both at the local level and nationally, is united behind the demand to halt the LNG buildout as the groups applauded Biden's efforts to curb exports thus far but also asked him to go further.
"We initially urged you to pause approvals of LNG exports," they wrote to Biden and Granholm, "we fiercely celebrated and defended your decision to do so in January, and now we write to let you know we continue to stand behind you as we insist that you take the next step of stopping new LNG exports."