Scholars Strategy Network: The global climate crisis and the presidential election (2024)

President Reagan posed a question to voters in 1984: “Are you better off now than you were four years ago?” Writers in this series will show that in this crucial election year the answer is a resounding “yes!” for many aspects of Americans’ well-being, from abundant jobs to affordable prescription drugs and declining crime rates.

However, when we consider the climate crisis, the evidence is clear and frightening: Conditions are becoming shockingly worse for the world, the United States, and Maine. Killing heat waves, rising sea levels, raging wildfires, and spreading diseases: “global weirding’s” impacts make headlines nearly every day. In Maine we’ve become all too familiar with more frequent severe storms that cause flooding, coastal devastation, and mass power outages. Worldwide, 2023 was the hottest year ever recorded; so far, 2024 is even hotter.

Climate change is a long-developing GLOBAL crisis, so no nation can single-handedly halt it, even with the best intentions and policies. Thus, the question, “Are you better off?”, needs re-framing: Will our future, and that of our children and grandchildren, be more secure and livable under either presidential candidate?

First, recall the attitudes and actions of the previous Trump administration. The claim that global warming is a “hoax.” The “drill, baby, drill” priority to fossil fuel extraction. The roll-back of limits on coal-fired power plant emissions. The rejection of the international Paris Agreement on climate issues.

President Biden’s commitment to combat global warming stands in stark contrast: “Anyone who willfully denies the impact of climate change is condemning the American people to a very dangerous future. The impacts we’re seeing are only going to get worse, more frequent, more ferocious, and more costly. [But] none of it’s inevitable…. From Day One, my administration has taken unprecedented climate action.” (Biden, Nov. 14, 2023)

The administration’s ambitious goal is to cut carbon emissions 50% by 2030, accelerating renewable energy generation and transmission and “decarbonizing” key economic sectors. In Maine, think solar panels, heat pumps, offshore wind, and mass timber construction. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Act was a start and the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act — passed despite Republican opposition — launched by far America’s largest climate investments. The IRA’s incentives have stimulated nearly $5.50 of private investment for every dollar of Federal expenditure and created thousands of high skill jobs in economically distressed regions.

Maine’s bold Climate Action Plan is benefiting Mainers in many ways, with heat pump subsidies, electric vehicle charging stations, flood protection infrastructure, and funds for electric grid resilience. Maine has become the national leader in heat pump installation. And the new federal $20 billion Clean Energy and Climate Solutions program just targeted $62 million to bring solar power to Maine’s sparsely populated rural areas.

On the international front, the USA rejoined the Paris Agreement and is earning back America’s lead role. At the United Nations’ 2023 Dubai climate summit, we promoted the first-ever declaration that fossil fuels must be phased out and won a crucial commitment to rein-in potent methane emissions. President Biden prioritizes assistance to lower income nations through the Green Climate Fund, recognizing that more “clean development” and less climate-driven immigration are our vital national interests.

Yet, despite these unprecedented initiatives, the United States is not on course to reach the goal of halving emissions by 2030. The reasons are many, and not all political. World demand for gas and oil drove U.S. production to a new peak in 2023. Offshore wind projects are stalled due to cost inflation and supply chain blockages. And consumers are less enthusiastic about electric vehicles than expected.

But political conflicts underlie many obstacles. Modernizing and expanding America’s outdated electrical grid is impeded in both red and blue states, including here in Maine. Congressional obstructionism, reinforced by fossil fuel industry lobbying, is also a major obstacle. For example, putting a price on carbon pollution, which every other advanced industrial nation has done, is stalled in Congress. In fact, current laws still funnel $14 billion in yearly subsidies to fossil fuel industries.

As Election Day approaches this fall, issues like abortion, immigration, Middle East policy — and the former president’s criminal trials — will likely dominate the news.

But the stakes could not be higher, nor the contrast between presidential candidates more stark, than in climate strategy. Candidate Trump rejects America’s international climate pledges and vows to repeal environmental protections. He has offered favorable treatment to fossil fuel interests in return for a billion-dollar campaign contribution. President Biden is committed to sustaining America’s recent progress toward a livable climate.

Intensifying alerts about life-threatening heat and devastating storms demand renewed commitment, not denial and course reversal.In November, voters will decide whether America sustains or reverses climate progress.

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