Advocates from several climate and environmental advocacy groups plan to make phone calls, place ads, knock on doors and leverage their star power to support Vice President Harris in the final stages of the 2024 campaign. The future of their cause.
Activist Saad Amer told The Hill ahead of a strategy meeting with movement leaders on Monday. “I feel like we can totally do this.”
Climate activists believe this election will have dire consequences for the planet, and Harris, who they believe can enact significant policies to mitigate climate change, and former President Trump, who has repeatedly minimized the problem and pledged to repeal numerous bills. We are making starkly contrasting choices between: Measures to combat this.
The Biden administration has taken historic climate action, including passing the Inflation Reduction Act, which includes billions of dollars in low-carbon energy sources. But some climate advocates say Presidents Biden and Harris have not done enough to address the issue. Many of these progressive voters have also expressed disappointment on other issues, including the government’s handling of the war in Gaza.
Meanwhile, Harris’ campaign has drawn a fine line on climate change, citing her commitment to tackling the global crisis while also distancing herself from more progressive positions, such as her previous support for a hydraulic fracturing ban when she ran in the Democratic primary. there is.
Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., a member of the Progressive Caucus and a surrogate for the Harris campaign, spoke during a strategy session Monday about ways to appeal to voters who may feel Harris is lacking on climate.
He said he was in Dearborn, Michigan, to make the case to voters who think the vice president’s Middle East policies don’t go far enough, and said a similar case could be made for climate voters.
“If Donald Trump wins, none of us will have a seat at the table. None of us will have any voice at all on Middle East policy or climate policy,” Khanna said. “We’ll be in that room with the vice president. And that’s a fundamental difference for people who have views that go beyond where the vice president is.”
Khanna said he has been visiting college campuses and will continue to do so in places like Georgia, which, like Michigan, is one of a group of swing states that could decide the outcome of the election.
Other movement leaders also detailed their planned efforts ahead.
Amer said he was invited to speak at a Billie Eilish concert in Atlanta. The 22-year-old pop star is especially popular among young people.
“She brings together all of our climate efforts at concerts where tens of thousands of people gather,” Amer said.
A group called Climate Power is also using celebrities. The group’s “Too Hot Not to Vote” campaign has already featured stars including Bill Nye and is working this week with college athletes in Michigan and Pennsylvania, said Heather Hargreaves, Climate Power’s vice president of campaigns.
Hargreaves said the group is trying to get athletes to vote and post videos about why climate change is important.
“We’re really excited about the strategy that allows us to reach people where they all are: on their phones,” she said.
Meanwhile, David Kieve, president of Environmental Defense Fund Action, said his group had spent $6 million this week, including $3 million on Spanish-language advertising, and that the organization had not yet made a decision. He said he hopes to sway Latino voters.
In a press release Tuesday, the progressive Sunrise movement said it has reached more than 1.9 million young voters in swing states so far and will continue campaigning in person, as well as phone and text banks, in Arizona, North Carolina, Michigan and Pennsylvania.
Climate change has been a key issue for young, progressive voters, and supporters agree it could be a motivating factor that drives them away in the final stages of the election.
But Khanna said on Monday that voter turnout and enthusiasm needed to improve.
“We can win with the current voter turnout, but it’s not at 2020 levels,” he said. “We have to figure out how to ignite enthusiasm to get voter turnout to the level we need next week.”
“Our numbers are good, but they are nowhere near 2020 levels. If we reach 2020 levels, we win. So this kind of call to action is key to reaching voters where they are,” Khanna later told reporters.
