Why Democrats aren’t talking much about one of their biggest issues

Climate change remains a major platform issue for Democrats, but you’d hardly know it listening to the hours of speeches at the Democratic National Convention last week in Chicago.
Vice President Kamala Harris, accepting her party’s nomination for president, gave a brief nod to the fundamental freedom to “live free from the pollution that fuels the climate crisis.”
Yet even after the hottest year on record and following a wave of disasters worsened by rising average temperatures, climate change received just a few passing mentions from a handful of speakers on the main stage.
It’s all in stark contrast to the last presidential campaign. In 2019, CNN gave seven hours of airtime to Democratic presidential hopefuls just to talk about their plans to address climate change. Harris put out her own detailed plan to address environmental disparities and hold polluters accountable for their greenhouse gas emissions, drawing on her record as a prosecutor. The eventual nominee and winner Joe Biden made addressing climate change a tentpole of his campaign and his time in office. In particular, Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act, which he described as “the biggest step forward on climate ever.”
Part of the reason for the minimal mentions of climate is the nature of the race itself. President Biden dropped out of the running just over a month ago, leaving little time for Harris and other Democrats to flesh out a distinct, detailed agenda on many issues, including climate, so there’s less to talk about.
The lack of a primary also changes Harris’s incentives. In the 2020 primary, Harris had to try to distinguish herself from a crowded field of primary candidates. Now, Harris only needs to draw a contrast with the Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, who has promised to boost fossil fuel production and undo support for clean energy. He used made-up numbers to downplay the consequences of climate change.
There’s another reason why Harris isn’t emphasizing climate change in the campaign: The topic is spurring fewer voters than before, and for those who are motivated by it, the choice is clear. “Very few voters say this issue is determinative to their presidential vote this year,” Patrick Murray, who leads the Polling Institute at Monmouth University, wrote in an email. “Among this small group, they have a clear choice in the race even if the issue isn’t being discussed. Their position seems to be that Democrats have to win this election first and then we’ll push the issue.”
Since the last presidential election, climate change has dropped as a priority for voters in general and Democrats in particular. “We’ve seen a big dip in concerns about climate change since 2020,” Murray said.
Most Americans do think that climate change is a real concern, but the urgency around it has declined. According to a poll conducted in April, Monmouth University found that 46 percent of Americans thought of climate change as a “very serious” issue, down from 56 percent in 2021.
For Republicans, climate change consistently ranks as a low concern, if it registers at all, and for Democrats, it has slid down the list of priorities as issues like the economy and immigration have climbed up. “For Democrats, there are multiple issues that compete for their highest attention. This includes things like gun violence, health care affordability, racial inequality, education, and, of course, inflation,” said Alec Tyson, associate director at the Pew Research Center. “That was an issue that maybe was not on the public radar a couple years ago, but it is now.”
Support for climate policies, such as promoting more wind and solar energy, remains high across the board, but it has declined since 2020 as well, with the sharpest drops among Republicans.
For Democrats, the key fissure that’s emerged is how quickly to shift the US economy from fossil fuels to renewable sources. Tyson said that Pew’s polling shows there’s “almost a unanimous belief” in the transition to clean energy.
“We asked this follow-up question, do you think we should essentially break with fossil fuels entirely and rely solely on renewables, or do you think that fossil fuel should still be part of a mix, even though we prioritize renewables?” Tyson said. “That’s really about a 50-50 divide within the Democratic Party.”
That divide has manifested in Democratic policies over the past four years. The Biden administration has set a goal of net-zero emissions from the energy sector by 2035 and imposed new vehicle pollution regulations that could make more than half of new cars sold electric in the next decade. Biden also signed into law the largest investments to address climate change in US history.
But the Biden White House has also presided over the country’s rise to becoming the world’s largest oil and gas producer and bragged about tapping the strategic petroleum reserve to keep gasoline prices low.
These policies didn’t yield many dividends for Biden among voters, with few who are even aware of legislation like the Inflation Reduction Act and its provisions to deploy wind turbines, solar panels, and electric vehicle charging stations. Even young voters, who typically rank climate change as a higher-tier concern, didn’t give much credit to Biden’s environmental bona fides before he dropped out.
So for the Democrats onstage at the convention, there wasn’t much upside to talking about global warming.
That said, there’s more to a political convention than the main stage during primetime. Aaron McCall, the federal advocacy coordinator at California Environmental Voters, said that climate change was still a major topic in the side rooms dedicated to discussing issues like LGBTQ rights, vulnerable populations, and economics. In addition, climate change and the energy transition are critical elements in other high-priority issues for Democrats: High gasoline prices contribute to inflation, more extreme natural disasters are raising housing costs, the clean energy sector is driving job growth, and so on.
“In all of the caucus meetings I went to, climate comes up,” McCall said from the convention. “Because those communities are the frontline communities, and they’re being impacted.”
The DNC also provided some hints as to who would join Harris’s team or have her ear if she moves into the White House next year. As a former attorney general in California, Harris has a deep bench of allies who have worked on climate policies. California in recent years has passed laws demanding companies publish their greenhouse gas emissions and banning the sale of new gasoline- and diesel-powered cars and trucks by 2035. Harris herself oversaw an investigation into Exxon Mobil’s statements about the oil company’s contributions to climate change. These personnel will shape her policies.
“There is a large California presence — Gov. Newsom, Lt. Gov. Kounalakis, Sen. Padilla,” McCall said. “California activists and organizational leaders, as we’re coming to talk about Kamala Harris, our next president, we’re also talking about the priorities and the issues that we care about, especially climate.”
How much will climate change matter in the runup to the election? Given the polls, it’s unlikely to alter anyone’s choice of candidate, though it could convince a few more people to get to the ballot box. “Within the Democratic coalition, it has more potential to operate as a turnout issue,” Tyson said.
But since the outcome of the election could put the world’s second-largest greenhouse gas emitter on a radically different course, it definitely matters for the climate.