Will the U.S. elections make or break the climate?

Never before have so many people gone to the polls in a single year: nearly half of the world’s population are set to cast their vote in 2024.

Soon, it’ll be the U.S.’s turn.

On 5 November, Americans will elect their new president, as well as a slew of new legislators in both houses of Congress: all 435 seats in the House of Representatives and 34 of the 100 seats in the Senate. State- and some local-level elections will also be held that day.

The two main political parties in the U.S., the Republican Party and the Democratic Party, have vastly different visions for the world’s second-largest carbon emitter.

And the climate crisis has no boundaries – meaning the effects of American emissions will continue to wreak havoc on communities both within and beyond the U.S.’s borders.

“This is a really big make-it-or-break-it moment for our country and the world to meet our climate targets for 2030,” says Kwolanne Felix, the fellowship director for Black Girl Environmentalist.

So, what do the upcoming elections mean for U.S. climate policy?

A shifting race

Incumbent President Joe Biden, a Democrat, was originally set to run for reelection.

That was until a televised debate between him and the Republican candidate, ex-president Donald Trump, in June. A disastrous performance from Biden prompted him to drop out of the race – just over three months before the election.

Biden and the rest of the Democratic Party then coalesced around Kamala Harris, the current vice president, to be the new candidate for their party.

The two main parties are more polarized than ever, including their approaches to the climate crisis.

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If Harris wins the election

Harris has not been very specific in her plans for the climate, but she is expected to build upon Biden’s climate platform, which has been considered one of the most ambitious in U.S. history.

The centerpiece of Biden’s climate record is the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), a law passed in 2022 that marked the largest ever U.S. investment in reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

For a law to pass, both the House of Representatives and Senate usually have to approve it by a simple majority.

Back when the IRA was working through Congress in 2022, the bill passed the then-Democratic majority in the House but was split within the Senate. Harris, as vice president, cast the tie-breaking vote that allowed the IRA to become law.

The IRA is a sprawling piece of legislation that invests hundreds of billions of dollars toward programs like tax credits that encourage renewable energy production and assistance for farmers adopting climate-friendly practices.

Another important law is the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill, which channeled USD 1.2 trillion into improving the country’s infrastructure, including public transportation and electric vehicle charging stations.

According to Jack Hanson, executive director of Run on Climate, policies like the IRA are mostly a mechanism to deliver funding to state or local governments to implement the transition to clean energy.

“It’s not the federal government coming into communities and putting in heat pumps or putting in solar, putting in bike lanes and making these energy efficiency upgrades,” says Hanson.

Biden’s administration also rejoined the Paris Agreement, joined the Global Methane Pledge and promised to halve carbon emissions by 2030.

But his climate record hasn’t been perfect. While his administration recently tried to pause the construction of new gas export terminals, it also approved the Willow oil drilling project in Alaska and a new oil export terminal in Texas.

And under Biden’s tenure, the U.S. has grown into the world’s largest exporter of natural gas and increased its lead as the world’s largest oil producer.

On the campaign trail, Harris has stated that she supports fracking, despite having previously opposed it.

This is likely because fracking is a major industry in the swing state of Pennsylvania, which holds a large number of the votes needed to win the election under the U.S.’s first-past-the-post electoral system.

This, along with the Biden administration’s stance on Israel’s wars in Gaza and Lebanon, has turned off some young people despite Trump’s disregard for the climate crisis, says Ariela Lara, a spokesperson for the Sunrise Movement and a student at the University of California, Berkeley.

“There is a major danger of people who do feel that there is no perfect candidate,” she says. “I do think that for many young people, it’s hard for them to cast their ballot.”

Before she became vice president, Harris was a Senator who co-sponsored the Green New Deal, a national mobilization to transition away from fossil fuels and other progressive policies.

And before she was a senator, as California’s attorney general, she investigated oil and gas companies and obtained a settlement from Volkswagen during its vehicle emissions scandal.

In August, Harris chose Minnesota governor Tim Walz as her pick for vice president.

While vice presidents don’t always influence the president’s policy choices, Walz comes with a climate record of his own: he has streamlined renewable energy permitting and set a goal for Minnesota to be 100 percent powered by clean energy by 2030.

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If Trump wins the election

If reelected, Trump has stated that he would move in the opposite direction: promoting more oil and gas production, repealing environmental regulations and slashing subsidies for renewable energy.

“We will drill, baby, drill,” said Trump at the Republican National Convention in July, referring to oil and gas.

Trump has long downplayed or outright denied the existence of climate change.

Now, he has also promised to encourage oil drilling on public lands like the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, protect tax breaks for fossil fuel producers, and approve natural gas pipelines “on my very first day back.” He claims these measures are necessary to lower energy prices and create jobs.

He has also railed against tax incentives to encourage electric vehicle purchases, claiming that they will destroy the country’s auto industry – though his rhetoric softened somewhat last month, possibly after receiving Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s endorsement.

Trump says he will repeal parts of the IRA, including tax credits for operating or investing in zero-emissions power plants, as well as other Biden-era environmental provisions like those incentivizing more energy-efficient homes.

His current stances align with his record during his term as president between 2017 and 2021. One of his first actions was to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris Agreement (which it then rejoined under Biden). Trump says he will do so again if reelected.

Trump also overturned roughly 100 environmental regulations as president, such as one requiring oil and gas companies to report their methane emissions and rules that limit toxic emissions from industrial polluters.

His vice-presidential pick, J.D. Vance, is a first-time Ohio senator who has largely changed his mind on the climate crisis.

As late as 2020, Vance acknowledged man-made climate change and invested in green start-ups. Now, he denies it and supports tax credits for fossil fuel-powered vehicle purchases.

Overshadowing Trump’s campaign is a document called Project 2025, a plan for a second Trump presidency written by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank. The 887-page document includes more extreme measures to orient U.S. policy toward fossil fuels.

Project 2025 proposes slashing climate-focused foreign aid funding, removing the office that supports energy efficiency and renewable energy, and changing how the Environmental Protection Agency regulates toxic substances, pesticides and pollution.

It also advocates eliminating several offices from the agency, including one focused on environmental justice – an issue important to disadvantaged communities that tend to be disproportionately affected by climate disasters and pollution.

Felix says the climate crisis harms gender and racial communities that already face other forms of marginalization.

“A great example is extreme heat,” she explains. “When we think of workers who have to use public transportation or who predominantly work outside, those communities are usually low-income communities or Black and brown communities.”

On the campaign trail, Trump has repeatedly denied having anything to do with Project 2025. The document, however, was written by many former members of his administration.

What about Congress and state governments?

While the presidential election gets most of the media attention, the Congressional elections could also influence the future of U.S. climate legislation.

The Republicans currently have a slender majority in the House, while the Democrats control 51 of the 100 Senate seats. If either party were able to gain control of both chambers, they would have considerable sway over the country’s direction.

Meanwhile, elections for state legislators, governors and more local positions will be held at the same time and could also affect the implementation of either candidate’s policies.

Hanson says state and local governments have considerable power in areas like housing, zoning and transportation, but “it’s going to be a lot easier for us to make more progress if we continue to see funding coming from the federal government and efficiency standards and other policies.”

With time running out to prevent climate catastrophe, the consequences of these elections will ripple across the world. And with the polls showing an extremely tight race, no one will sit easy until November.