Climate change isn’t the number one issue on most people’s minds as they head to the polls for the 2024 election on Nov. 5. Instead, abortion, immigration and the economy are generally the major issues people put first for why they’re choosing a particular candidate, whether it’s former President Donald Trump, Vice President Kamala Harris or a third-party runner. Of course, there isn’t really a crisis that climate change isn’t making worse, whether it’s eroding reproductive rights, driving mass migration or accelerating inflation.
Regardless, because of the way elections work in the United States, whoever wins will set the tone for at least the next four years when it comes to climate policy. And experts repeatedly remind us that time is running out when it comes to meaningful action that can reduce the worst outcomes of climate change — what some have warned is an ongoing “biological holocaust” that will result in “universal suicide.”
Experts who spoke with Salon about the 2024 presidential election all agreed on a key point: This election is a critical moment for the planet. And given his abysmal record on the environment, it’s clear that if Republican nominee Trump wins, it will be incredibly difficult to curb fossil fuel emissions.
“If Trump wins, he will undoubtedly do his best to accelerate irreversible planetary overheating as rapidly as he can,” Dr. Peter Kalmus, a NASA climate scientist (who speaks only for himself), said. “He's completely out of touch with reality on planet Earth.”
“If Trump wins, very little will be done,” Dr. Mark Serreze, director of the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC), where he specializes in Earth’s cryosphere: the frozen areas like ice, snow and frozen ground. “Progress will be undone.”
Heavy rains from Hurricane Helene caused record flooding and damage on September 28, 2024 in Asheville, North Carolina. (Melissa Sue Gerrits/Getty Images)
Dr. Kevin Trenberth, a distinguished scholar at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, worked for the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP) and has published more than 600 articles on climatology, told Salon “all indications are that Trump would be a major disaster for dealing with [climate change] and just about everything else that requires international diplomacy.”
He added it’s “Not clear how much Harris will be a savior, but she is far and away better than Trump.”
"The choice couldn’t be more stark."
It is easy to see why Harris may be viewed as less than ideal on climate change. Although the Democratic nominee’s plan includes stronger emissions regulations and subsidizing clean energy, Harris also supports fossil fuels and fracking and would continue the climate change policies passed by the Inflation Reduction Act. Beyond that, she has been vague about her climate change plans, not mentioning the issue in her 82-page economic plan and only briefly alluding to it in her acceptance speech.
By contrast, Trump withdrew the U.S. from the Paris climate agreement, rolled back more than 100 environmental rules, expanded fossil fuel drilling and weakened ecologically-oriented business regulations in numerous ways. If elected again, he promises to reverse the Biden climate change policies (including again withdrawing America from the Paris climate agreement, which Biden reentered) and is linked to Project 2025, a policy blueprint for the next Republican administration largely written by former Trump staffers which promises to dismantle the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and politicize the Environmental Protection Agency.
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Overall Trump can be expected to continue his previous practice of scrubbing reference to human-caused climate change from government documents and policy, then replacing it with misinformation.
“The problem is not misconception, rather, misinformation,” Serreze said, listing as examples the false claims that climate change is a hoax, that it’s caused by the sun instead of burning fossil fuels, is motivated by "fat government handouts,” is caused by volcanoes or is a government conspiracy. “The list goes on.”
Climate change is primarily caused by human activity, particularly that involved with our overuse of fossil fuels. From factory farms and energy industries to the forests we raze and the cars we drive, humans engage in a number of activities that emit greenhouse gasses that trap heat and cause the Earth to unnaturally warm beyond what can be explained by volcanoes or natural climate fluctuations.
There is at least one practice supported by both candidates that emits many of these greenhouse gasses — waging war.
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“The biggest issue for [climate change] and everything are the wars and conflicts around the world,” Trenberth said, ticking off the conflicts in Russia, Iran, Gaza, Sudan and North Korea. “Wars are extremely bad for the environment, quite aside from all the other bad aspects.”
Even if America stops funding military campaigns from Europe to the Middle East, however, University of Pennsylvania climate scientist Dr. Michael E. Mann observes that it will be absolutely necessary to wean humanity off of fossil fuels.
“It's actually pretty simple, we’ve got to get off fossil fuels as quickly as possible,” Mann said. “It’s hard to see that happening in the event of a Trump victory, which is why I’ve said before — and I’ll say again — a second Trump presidency is game over for meaningful climate action.”
He added, “The choice couldn’t be more stark. It is a choice between a path where we have hope of limiting climate damage and a choice where there is no such hope, at least for the critical decade of the 2020s.”
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