In the 2020 presidential election, climate activists demanded that Democratic candidates explain, in detail, how they planned to tackle the planet’s greatest environmental threat.
But in the weeks since Vice President Kamala Harris ascended the 2024 Democratic ticket, she has mentioned climate change only in passing, and offered no specifics on how she would curb dangerous levels of warming. Climate leaders say they are fine with that.
“I am not concerned,” said Jay Inslee, the Democratic governor of Washington, who made climate change the centerpiece of his own 2019 bid for the presidency. Mr. Inslee said he believes it is more important for Ms. Harris to draw a distinction between her and her Republican rival, former President Donald J. Trump, than to drill down on policy nitty-gritty.
“I am totally confident that when she is in a position to effect positive change, she will,” Gov. Inslee said.
As Ms. Harris prepares to address the nation on Thursday at the Democratic National Convention, she faces the challenge of energizing party loyalists while also reaching out to disaffected Republicans and moderate voters. So far Ms. Harris and her running mate Tim Walz, the governor of Minnesota, have embraced a pragmatic agenda, calling for things like a minimum-wage increase and child-care funding.
While President Biden has made climate change a signature issue, signing into law the largest clean energy investments in American history, Ms. Harris has yet to detail for voters her climate or clean-energy positions. Some analysts chalked that up to strategy and said new promises to slash greenhouse gas emissions or rein in fossil fuels could alienate voters particularly in the energy-rich swing state of Pennsylvania.
“This doesn’t look accidental, it looks like a deliberate choice,” said Kevin Book, managing director of ClearView Energy Partners, a Washington-based research firm, referring to the sparse mentions of climate change in the speeches of Ms. Harris and Mr. Walz.
“I think they are worried if she takes a strong position on climate, even it fits the same position that Biden took, it will make her look too progressive,” Mr. Book said, adding, “It’s a divisive issue and they need both sides as much as possible to win Pennsylvania.”
Others said Ms. Harris already has voters who care about climate change locked up and doesn’t need to court them. Climate groups this week announced a $55 million advertising campaign to support the Harris ticket.
Nathaniel Stinnett, founder of the Environmental Voter Project, a nonpartisan nonprofit that encourages environmentalists to vote, said his group’s new poll found swing-state voters between the ages of 18 and 34, many of whom cite climate as a top voting priority, are particularly energized around Ms. Harris’s campaign.
“Climate voters and young voters more generally were bored and even a little angry that they had to choose between Joe Biden and Donald Trump,” Mr. Stinnett said. “Kamala Harris has reset the conversation,” he said.
Gina McCarthy, President Biden’s former climate change adviser and a former administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, said activists are not demanding more details on climate from Ms. Harris and Mr. Walz because they each have well-known accomplishments. As vice president, Ms. Harris cast the tiebreaking vote for the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, the largest climate investment in United States history. Mr. Walz signed a law requiring Minnesota to get all of its electricity from wind, solar and other carbon-free sources by 2040.
“Nobody’s worried about how many times she talks about climate change,” Ms. McCarthy said, calling Ms. Harris and Mr. Walz “climate champions.”
As senator from California, Ms. Harris cosponsored the Green New Deal, a nonbinding resolution that called for a transition away from fossil fuels to clean energy this decade. The Harris campaign hasn’t said whether she still supports the Green New Deal, and has emphasized that her climate focus is on implementing the Inflation Reduction Act.
During her 2019 presidential run, Ms. Harris positioned herself to the left of Mr. Biden, calling for a fracking ban and a tax on carbon pollution, as well as changes to federal dietary guidelines to encourage less meat consumption. She did not advocate those positions once she became Mr. Biden’s running mate and then vice president.
A spokesman said Ms. Harris no longer supports a fracking ban.
Mr. Trump has mocked climate science and has promised to repeal regulations designed to cut greenhouse gases, and he has attacked Ms. Harris on energy based on her 2019 positions. This week he told attendees at a rally in York, Pa., that “there will be no fracking” in the state “or anywhere else” if she wins the White House. Pennsylvania is the second-biggest producer of natural gas- after Texas.
Harris campaign officials have said that the vice president and Gov. Walz have focused in recent weeks on introducing themselves to the American public and haven’t avoided climate change. In speeches in Arizona and Nevada, Ms. Harris remarked that citizens there had firsthand experience with climate-driven extreme heat and drought.
“You know the climate crisis is real,” Ms. Harris said in Las Vegas this month, adding, “but Donald Trump, well, he claims it’s a hoax.”
