Journalists of the Euronews portal have analyzed the previous achievements of the US presidential candidate Kamala Harris in the fight against climate change and believe that it is highly likely that she will continue Joe Biden's policy in this area.
The material with the corresponding analysis appeared on the portal.
First of all, journalists noted that since the US elections are only a few months away, Harris is unlikely to stray far from Biden's platform. They recalled that the vice president, as the chief US representative at the UN climate conference in Dubai last year, said the world "must do more" on this vital issue.
Kamala Harris' previous climate policy
Analysts pointed out that this is not Kamala Harris' first run for president, and her short-lived 2019 campaign provides some insight into her thinking, as does her experience as California attorney general from 2011 to 2017.
In this position, she:
- investigated the activities of ExxonMobil, which misled the public about climate change;
- litigated Plains All-American Pipeline over the 2015 oil spill off the coast of California;
- secured the payment of $86 million (€79 million) to the state from the automobile company Volkswagen over allegations of fraud during diesel engine emissions tests.
Prior to that, while serving as San Francisco's district attorney from 2004-2011, Harris created what she called the nation's first environmental justice unit to deal with environmental crimes (like dumping hazardous waste) against the area's poorest residents.
"Environmental crimes are crimes against communities, people who are often poor and disenfranchised. The people who live in these communities often have no choice but to live there," Harris said in 2005.
Euronews hopes that this impressive biography and treatment of pollution as a crime shows that Kamala Harris is willing to be tougher on the fossil fuel industry than Biden.
They noted that this optimism is also supported by Harris' presidential bid in 2019. At the time, she called for a pollution charge that would "make polluters pay for the emissions of greenhouse gases into our atmosphere." The vice president also emphasized that under her leadership, the United States will increase enforcement and prosecution of companies that extract fossil fuels.
In 2020, she said she opposes fracking and offshore drilling and will ban fossil fuel leasing on public lands if she becomes president. But journalists noted that Harris distanced herself from these proposals, supporting Biden.
Another notable milestone in Harris's climate biography, analysts said, was that while serving as a senator from California in 2019, she supported the "Green New Deal" as one of its first co-authors. This ambitious green economy plan proposed a transition to 100 percent clean energy within a decade.
At the beginning of July, EcoPolitic reported that Trump wants withdraw the US from the Paris climate agreement for the second time, if he wins the election.
