Letter to ABC Moderators: Ask Trump & Harris About Climate Plans

September 5, 2024

To: David Muir and Linsey Davis, ABC

Dear Mr. Muir and Ms. Davis:

As you know, ABC’s September 10 presidential debate will be the first – and potentially only – opportunity for voters to hear directly from Vice President Harris and former President Trump on the same stage about how they will address the pressing issues of our time before the November 5 election.

Every day across the country, Americans are experiencing the catastrophic economic, health, and environmental impacts of climate change. The undersigned organizations are counting on you, the debate moderators, to ask Vice President Harris and former President Trump how they intend to address the climate crisis, lower energy costs for the middle class, and take our country forward. 

The candidates’ climate records are stark: 

• Vice President Kamala Harris calls the climate crisis an “existential threat” and says “the freedom to breathe clean air and drink clean water and live free from the pollution that fuels the climate crisis” is a fundamental freedom at stake in the 2024 election. 

• Former President Donald Trump calls climate change a “hoax,” rolled back more than 100 environmental protections as president, and withdrew the United States from the Paris Climate Agreement. 

• Vice President Kamala Harris cast the tie-breaking vote for a plan to triple clean energy production, move the U.S. closer to science-based climate pollution goals the world must meet to avoid the worst impacts of the climate crisis,  and save Americans $38 billion on electricity bills. In two years, the plan has already created more than 330,000 new, good-paying jobs. 

• Donald Trump’s Project 2025 Agenda would gut clean energy investments, potentially ceding manufacturing to China and other foreign nations. According to a report by the nonpartisan group Energy Innovation, Project 2025 would lead to an increase of $240 more in annual energy costs for American households and $32 billion more in total household energy costs for Americans as well as 1.7 million in total job losses in 2030. 

• Harris has spent her career fighting for clean air and water and taking on corporate polluters — including securing over $50 million for taxpayers in settlements from Big Oil. 

• Trump asked Big Oil executives to donate $1 billion to his campaign and promised to eliminate health and environmental protections and deliver them $110 billion in tax breaks in his second term.

Polling shows that the vast majority of voters support climate action and that climate issues are particularly salient with critical young voters, but that in general, voters don’t know much about Trump’s record on the environment and are still getting to know Vice President Harris. 

A climate question has been asked in every presidential debate for the last four years. When millions of Americans tune in on Tuesday, we hope you will continue this pattern, take the opportunity to discuss the urgency of the climate crisis, and help voters learn more about both candidates’ plans to address climate change, lower energy costs for the middle class, and take our country forward. Thank you very much for providing this opportunity to the candidates and the American people.

Sincerely,

Center for American Progress Action Fund

Clean Air Moms Action

Clean Energy For America

Climate Power

EDF Action

Evergreen Action

Food & Water Action

Friends of the Earth Action

Green New Deal Network

Greenpeace USA

League of Conservation Voters

Make Polluters Pay

NRDC Action Fund

Sierra Club

Young, Gifted & Green

The Wilderness Society Action Fund

Clean Water Action