November 5th, 2024, will be a historic day in American history. For the first time since Lyndon B. Johnson, the incumbent candidate has dropped out. We may have our first not only female but Asian president as well. Alternately, we may have the first president since Grover Cleaveland in 1892 to have a gap between their presidential terms. Most importantly, the election symbolizes a quickly growing partisan and polarized gap within America, with the winner having to navigate a heavily divided nation.
Amongst the many issues former President Donald Trump and presumed Democratic nominee Kamala Harris will have to focus on, climate change is amongst the most contentious. America is heavily split on the issue, with only 12% of Republicans believing it should be a top priority compared to 59% of Democrats. That’s why the next president will be vital to shaping future climate policy. A Democratic victory may see climate policies pushed under President Biden to the next level, whereas a Republican victory may be disastrous, reverting all progress made.
Democratic Policies
The Democrat Party's 2024 Platform Draft highlights two major strategies by which they aim to curb emissions and mitigate the effects of climate change. The first is investment. Highlighting policies passed under President Biden, Democrats seek to attract private investment into clean energy technology and use tax credits to bolster domestic industry. The government has also provided significant investment into climate research, including creating APRA-C (Advanced Research Projects Agency for Climate), with a 100 million dollar investment. Additionally, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law invested $21 billion to aid in pollution cleanup, primarily among lower-income or historically damaged communities. Policies such as these have spurred on job growth, with 300,000 new jobs in climate-related industries being created, lower dependence on “Big Oil”, and lower costs for energy installation projects.
The second avenue comes in the form of increased regulation. The administration banned all-cancer-causing asbestos and prohibited the use of harmful pesticides such as chlorpyrifos. Furthermore, water standards have been changed to prevent harmful “forever chemicals” from polluting water systems. They further state that they want increased protections on arctic land, and conserving national parks and public land from being used in farming. The party's goals are ambitious but heavily look to policies passed under President Biden for inspiration, many of which have been extremely beneficial. President Biden had taken more action on climate than any other President before, and Democrats only need to continue enforcing and expanding these policies so that the US can ensure the security and health of its citizens.
Republican Policies
In regards to Republican proposed policies, we can look to two places: the official platform released at the RNC, and Project 2025, which, while not the official platform, is important to note. In the official platform, the first point of chapter one addresses American energy. To address rising energy costs, it suggests lifting restrictions on oil and natural gas to ensure the US is the number one producer. It advocates “terminating the Socialist Green New Deal”, a bill that has been introduced but not passed as of yet. The Green New Deal is an ambitious and controversial bill to rapidly go completely carbon-free. Left-wing sources cite the bill as necessary to prevent the national security threat that is climate change, whereas right-wing sources see it as placing the burden completely on American households.
The Republican party platform does acknowledge the usage of nuclear power in achieving cheap energy costs. While nuclear energy is not renewable, 96% of the fuel used is recyclable, and it produces nearly no emissions. The Trump administration did approve a $1.35 billion investment into nuclear energy, so these promises may follow through, but the dangers of heavily deregulating oil and gas industries proves a danger to the climate cost. Chapter 3 point 4 directly addresses this, saying that they will “end market-distorting restrictions on Oil, Natural Gas, and Coal.” These energy sources have historically caused the most emissions and devastated the climate, and deregulating them will harm us much more than help. Interestingly, the entire platform has not one mention of the words “climate change”.
Another way to look into Republican policies is by looking at Project 2025. While Trump has publicly said that the document doesn’t represent the Republican agenda, previous discussions outside the public eye differ. In Trump’s address at the Heritage Foundation annual leadership conference in 2022, he said “And Heritage does such an incredible job at that. This is a great group, and they’re going to lay the groundwork and detailed plans for exactly what our movement will do and what your movement will do when the American people give us a colossal mandate to save America. And that’s coming, that’s coming,”.
In Project 2025, we see a much darker picture painted. This includes cutting all US foreign aid to developing countries for green energy transitions (257), a day one executive order restricting the EPA from any sort of bureaucratic discretion (422), stopping any sort of clean energy transition (418), repealing funding for clean energy that goes through the inflation reduction act (369), and increasing investment into arctic resource exploitation, and that’s to name a few. While much of this policy will face gridlock in Congress, even a little bit of its passing will be devastating.
The Bottom Line
The 2024 election will have a serious impact on climate change no matter which side wins. A Democratic victory would see policies implemented under President Biden continue, with billions in investment in clean energy systems and increased regulations on oil and gas businesses that are polluting the environment. Conversely, a Republican victory would cement the US as the world's major energy power in gas and oil as mass deregulation and rampant drilling and mining occur. This would all come at the cost of much of the climate progress achieved over the last few decades and cause many major issues to materialize. November 5th, 2024 will no doubt be one of the most important days in US history as we see how the United States navigates one of its most polarized periods in history amongst the rise of its most existential threat.
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