Vice presidential hopefuls Tim Walz, the Democratic governor of Minnesota, and JD Vance, the junior Republican senator from Ohio, faced off in New York on Tuesday night. It was the first time the two men debated, and probably the last debate of this year’s race to the White House. The evening began with a decidedly less awkward handshake than the one that kicked off the presidential debate a month ago, and quickly moved on to a foreign policy question. However, one unknown at the outset was the extent to which the moderators or the candidates would bring up climate change.
At the presidential debate between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump last month, the climate question only came at the end of the candidates’ sparring session. This time it was the second question moderators asked, and both candidates went particularly to the political center, with Walz endorsing “an all-above-energy policy” and Vance trying to sidestep the question of whether climate change is human-caused .
The debate came amid a politically and climatically dramatic few months. Walz and Harris historically arrived late to the race and ran to publicize their views on a host of issues, including climate change. And while climate is at the bottom of the list of voter issuesclimate change-fueled disasters have plagued the country, from flooding in Vermont on wildfires in California and, most recently, the parts of devastation that Hurricane Helene originated along the southeastern United States.
CBS News moderators Norah O’Donnell and Margaret Brennan linked their question to Helene, pointing to research showing climate change is making hurricanes “bigger, stronger and deadlier,” as well as polls showing 7 in 10 Americans favor taking action to address. climate change.
Both candidates responded by expressing their condolences to the victims of the hurricane, with Vance calling it an “unbelievable, unspeakable human tragedy.” However, they differed on both the causes and the solutions to the broader climate issue.
Vance, who responded first, endorsed a strong federal response to aid disaster victims before turning to the bigger picture. He avoided acknowledging the reality of human-caused climate change, instead referring to “crazy weather patterns” and global warming as “weird science.” For argument’s sake, Vance started from the premise that carbon emissions drive climate change — “Let’s just say that’s true,” he said. Vance argued that bringing manufacturing back to the United States would reduce emissions, falsely claimed that America has “the cleanest economy in the whole world”.
As for solutions, Vance derided the Biden administration’s push for solar panels because, he said, their components often come from foreign countries. He referred to the potential for building new nuclear energy facilities and explicitly called for more energy production domestically, without specifically mentioning oil or natural gas.
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If Vance hedged about the reality of climate change, Walz emphatically stated the problem. “Climate change is real. Reducing our impact is absolutely critical,” he said, the Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Actthe largest clean energy spending bill in history, which he said “created jobs across the country.” In an awkward turn of phrase, Walz said, “We see ourselves becoming an energy superpower for the future, not just the present.”
He did not take the opportunity to highlight its own climate record, which is remarkably long. As governor of Minnesota, he signed legislation reforming clean energy and requiring the state’s utilities to get 100 percent of their energy from clean sources by 2040. Walz also failed to she support of the extension of the line 3 oil pipeline which runs through Minnesota, which has the same climate impact as 50 new coal-fired power plants.
Ultimately, the climate consequences of this election could be enormous. For example, it can determine how close the US is radiated more greenhouse gases throughout history than any other country, come to achieve the dramatic reduction of emissions according to scientists is necessary to avoid the worst impacts of global warming. And even a casual debate watcher couldn’t miss the two candidates’ divergent views on America’s energy future.
The Democratic ticket planned to combat the climate crisis as a matter of protecting freedomand encouraged continued investment in clean energy. The official GOP platformon the other, includes a rollback of rules encouraging the adoption of electric vehicles and a call for the United States to become the world leader in oil, gas and coal production. Some researchers have estimated that a second Trump term could add an extra 4 billion metric tons of carbon to the atmosphere by 2030, compared to a Democratic presidency.
Vance returned to the theme of domestic energy production throughout the debate, saying at one point that one of the fastest ways to address the housing crisis is to “drill, baby, drill.” His closing statement included an anecdote about how growing up his grandmother didn’t always have enough money to turn on the heat — and he argued that Biden and Harris’ energy policies make it harder for everyday Americans to power afford. (The Inflation Reduction Act is expected to save Americans $38 billion in electricity bills by 2030.) Climate and energy did not come up in Walz’s closing statement.
