The Hidden Hand of Climate Change in the Presidential Election

Earlier this week, ProPublica published an investigation revealing that the Heritage Foundation, home of Project 2025, has been flooding the federal government with Freedom of Information Act requests targeted at federal employees, meant to discover which have used words including “climate change” and “climate equity” in emails and chats. A few hours later, JD Vance and Tim Walz met for what will likely be the final candidate debate of the 2024 presidential campaign, and got one question about climate — the same quantity asked of Donald Trump and Kamala Harris in their debate last month.

The campaign is not quite over, but the role of climate change within it can be seen in these two stories. Climate has been a vital issue in this presidential race, but one that has been largely muted. Only occasionally has it intruded into the attention of those who weren’t already following the issue closely. But we’ve seen enough to understand that the next few years will be vital in shaping the government’s climate posture and the nation’s future.

Despite profound differences between the parties in both their beliefs about climate change and their policy preferences, there was some degree of convergence in their rhetoric. Smarter Republicans understand that Trump’s brand of flamboyant denialism is not a political winner for a national audience, and they’ve attempted to offer something more subtle. That’s why we saw Vance turn the climate question he got at the debate into an answer about boosting manufacturing, after admitting that “a lot of people are justifiably worried about all these crazy weather patterns” and noting that China is the world’s biggest carbon emitter. A viewer who knew nothing about what the Republican ticket actually wants to do might think the GOP is only slightly less committed to climate action than its opponents.

Walz’s response was that under the current administration, the country is already producing more energy than ever and boosting manufacturing. Which reflected another reality that came into focus in this campaign: While Democrats still favor restrictive regulation in some areas, their primary climate policies revolve around carrots rather than sticks, tax incentives and subsidies for states, businesses, and consumers to create a broad-based transition to a green economy. Those are the policies they want to talk about.

That shift makes their climate arguments far more politically appealing — and their legislative achievements potentially more durable. The enormous subsidies contained in the Inflation Reduction Act and Bipartisan Infrastructure Law are making their way disproportionately to red states, which is why plenty of down-ballot candidates from both parties are lauding the jobs being created with government help. There may still be some vigorous debate within the GOP about whether they should try to repeal the IRA if they get the chance, but the mostly-carrots approach is now firmly embedded in Democratic policymaking, as is the idea that climate optimism is a savvier way to persuade the public than dire warnings of a frightening future, even if that’s what we do face.

Nevertheless, there will likely be no big-spending climate legislation resembling the IRA coming out of Congress in the near future. Control of the Senate sits on a knife edge, with Democrats needing to win nearly every closely contested seat to hang on to their majority. Even if they do and Harris wins the presidency, they may well decide that they took their shot and succeeded already, and therefore devote the once-per-year reconciliation bill (which cannot be filibustered) to other priorities. There are areas of bipartisan interest, including permitting reform, that could speed the development of clean energy projects, but they may wind up more limited in scope.

If Republicans take over the White House and Congress, on the other hand, the future is less clear. They may attempt a repeal of some of the IRA, along with the other major bills passed during the Biden administration, but much of their focus will probably be on what can be accomplished with executive branch authority.

Which is why all the scrutiny that Project 2025 has garnered has been one of the best things about this campaign, proving enormously instructive on a range of issues, including climate. More voters than ever now understand that when we elect a president we also elect a huge apparatus of governing. Policy is made at a variety of levels, and thousands of civil servants no one has ever heard of can do a great deal to improve or undermine people’s lives.

While Trump may deny that Project 2025 is his blueprint for governing, it certainly reflects his climate intentions and those of the people who will serve in his administration. He shares with the project a commitment to changing civil service rules to put loyal apparatchiks in positions throughout the federal government, and a devotion to fossil-fuel-friendly climate policies will be a key requirement for many who want to take those jobs in agencies including the Department of the Interior and the Environmental Protection Agency. All that has become clear to a great many voters.

The vice presidential debate may not be the last time the candidates are asked to address climate; if nothing else, there will probably be a few more natural disasters in the next month, which could push the issue back on the agenda. But while we can’t say there was a detailed debate about climate in the 2024 election that grappled with our present and future in a nuanced way, one can’t really say that about any issue. The climate debate we got was far short of perfect, but it probably left voters knowing more than they did a year or two ago. Given the degraded state of so much of what passes for democratic deliberation, that isn’t so bad.