Kamala Harris’ decision to dedicate a mere half-sentence to climate change in her 40-minute speech accepting the Democratic presidential nomination is perhaps unsurprising. Despite casting the tie-breaking vote in 2022 for the country’s largest climate law, the vice president has largely avoided the subject since President Joe Biden dropped out of the race a month ago, writes Scott Waldman. Thursday night was no exception. In talking about fundamental freedoms at stake in the election, Harris noted “the freedom to breathe clean air and drink clean water, and to live free from the pollution that fuels the climate crisis.” Earlier in the evening, the convention featured a 13-minute segment of speeches and videos in which speakers such as Interior Secretary Deb Haaland hailed the administration’s efforts to use record amounts of spending to fight climate change and create clean energy jobs. The green groups’ calculation, political strategists say, is a simple one: Former President Donald Trump’s pledge to unravel Biden’s climate gains should he retake the White House is enough to drive environmentally minded voters to the polls for Harris. Harris’ entry into the race has further stoked excitement among the green base, something Biden had struggled to do — and climate activists say they’re avoiding doing anything that might spoil that momentum. “We don't want to sabotage her campaign for no valid reason,” Brett Hartl, the chief political strategist with the Center for Biological Diversity Action Fund, told Zack Colman. Plus, avoiding the subject may woo voters in the natural gas-laden swing state of Pennsylvania concerned that Harris once promised to ban fracking before reversing herself. (Trump’s campaign is trying hard to remind those voters, however.) While green groups have largely given Harris a grace period, eventually more activists are going to demand specifics. “We need more than platitudes,” Collin Rees, political director at Oil Change U.S., said in a statement. “We need concrete, specific commitments to match the urgency of the climate crisis.” Democrats say the Biden administration’s policies, if not unraveled, will create hundreds of thousands of jobs, remake the economy, lower consumers' costs and help save the planet from climate change. But many analyses show the measures won’t fully realize the nation’s climate goals. So the actions Harris eventually proposes for slashing the country’s remaining atmospheric pollution will matter if the country is to succeed in curbing planet-warming emissions 50 percent below 2005 levels by 2030 — the goal laid out in the Paris climate accords. Still, activists say Harris’ policies won’t matter if she doesn’t win. “Let’s be clear: the most important climate policy right now is defeating Donald Trump in November,” said Cassidy DiPaola with Fossil Free Media in a statement. “All the wonky policy details in the world won’t matter if climate deniers control the White House,” she continued.
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