NYT: Harris’s New Strategy: Equate Fighting Climate Change With ‘Freedom’ – Framing As ‘Patriotism’ – ‘A novel way of framing climate change’
Vice President Kamala Harris mentioned climate change just once in her speech before the Democratic National Convention on Thursday, wrapping it into her larger campaign theme of freedom.
After attacking her Republican opponent, former President Donald J. Trump, on abortion, Ms. Harris declared that along with reproductive choice “many other fundamental freedoms are at stake” in the November election. Those include “the freedom to breathe clean air, and drink clean water and live free from the pollution that fuels the climate crisis,” she said.
It was a novel way of framing climate change for a campaign that has sought to reclaim patriotism after decades of Republicans seeming to own the messaging around freedom. And it was a message echoed by others throughout the night, including Representative Maxwell Frost of Florida, the youngest member of Congress, who declared in a speech earlier in the evening that “fighting the climate crisis is patriotic.”
Ms. Harris has not offered any new policies for addressing climate change.
She also has talked about climate on the campaign trail far less frequently than President Joe Biden did when he ran for president. In his 2020 acceptance speech for the Democratic nomination, Mr. Biden called climate change an “existential threat” and said, “It’s not only a crisis, it’s an enormous opportunity. An opportunity for America to lead the world in clean energy and create millions of new good-paying jobs in the process.”
In a significant departure from the 2020 presidential campaign, climate groups this year haven’t pressed the Democratic nominee to be more outspoken on the issue. That may be in part because Ms. Harris appears to already have the support of voters who put climate at the top of their election priorities. A new poll of swing state voters from the Environmental Voter Project shows that younger voters, who were appearing to turn away from President Joe Biden, are more energized around Ms. Harris’s campaign.
“We know that the Harris-Walz administration will work tirelessly to ensure that all people in this country are free to breath clean air, drink clean water and live in a healthy climate,” said Tiernan Sittenfeld, the senior vice president of government affairs for the League of Conservation Voters.
Cassidy DiPaola, a spokeswoman for Fossil Free Media, a nonprofit group, said in a statement, “We’ve moved beyond simply counting mentions of climate change.” Instead, “we’re seeing climate woven throughout the convention.”