Helene Sparks Climate Change Debate in Presidential Campaign \ Newslooks \ Washington DC \ Mary Sidiqi \ Evening Edition \ Hurricane Helene’s devastation, killing over 200 people across the Southeast, has brought climate change to the forefront of the presidential campaign. President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, and former President Donald Trump have all visited affected states, leading to heated exchanges over climate change, federal disaster response, and environmental policy. The storm has reignited debates about climate action as candidates clash over renewable energy, fossil fuels, and national resilience.
Hurricane Helene Puts Climate Change Front and Center in U.S. Election: Quick Looks
- Climate Change Debate Intensifies: Hurricane Helene, the deadliest storm since Hurricane Katrina, has forced climate change into the spotlight of the presidential campaign as candidates discuss its impact and the need for federal response.
- Biden, Harris, and Trump Visit Devastated Areas: President Biden and Vice President Harris visited the Southeast to survey storm damage, while Trump criticized the federal response, claiming the government was ill-prepared.
- Candidates Clash Over Climate and Energy: During the vice presidential debate, Democrat Tim Walz highlighted the link between the storm and climate change, while Republican JD Vance criticized the administration’s policies, questioning the link between carbon emissions and global warming.
Deep Look
Hurricane Helene’s catastrophic impact has pushed climate change to the forefront of the presidential campaign, as Vice President Kamala Harris, President Joe Biden, and former President Donald Trump all visited affected areas in the Southeast to witness the aftermath firsthand. With over 200 people confirmed dead, Helene has become the deadliest storm to hit the U.S. mainland since Hurricane Katrina in 2005, making climate policy a pressing issue in this election cycle.
Vice President Kamala Harris traveled to Georgia on Wednesday, visiting areas heavily impacted by the storm. Her visit came two days after former President Donald Trump was in the state, where he criticized the federal response to the disaster. Trump claimed that the Biden administration’s response was inadequate, raising questions about federal disaster preparedness and support for impacted communities.
President Joe Biden surveyed some of the worst-affected areas in North Carolina, Georgia, and Florida via helicopter on Wednesday and Thursday. Biden, who has often visited disaster zones to console victims of natural disasters ranging from hurricanes to wildfires, once again emphasized the urgency of addressing the increasing strength and frequency of extreme weather events linked to climate change.
“Storms are getting stronger and stronger,” Biden said after assessing the damage near Asheville, North Carolina. At least 70 people died in the state due to Helene’s devastation. In a briefing held later in Raleigh, Biden pointedly added, “Nobody can deny the impact of the climate crisis any more. They must be brain dead if they do.”
Vice President Harris took a hands-on approach during her visit, comforting survivors in hurricane-ravaged Augusta, Georgia. “There is real pain and trauma that resulted because of this hurricane and its aftermath,” she said while standing outside a storm-damaged home surrounded by downed trees. “We are here for the long haul,” she added, promising that federal support would be sustained through the recovery phase.
Hurricane Helene’s impact has made climate change a central issue after it had previously only been briefly touched upon in the presidential debates earlier in the year. Up to this point, candidates had been primarily focused on topics such as abortion rights, the economy, and immigration. However, Tuesday’s vice presidential debate marked a shift, with climate change playing a significant role in the discussion. Democratic candidate Tim Walz and his Republican opponent JD Vance both agreed on the need for a strong federal response to the storm, but their views diverged sharply when it came to connecting Helene’s intensity to a warming climate.
Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, representing the Democratic side, argued that Hurricane Helene was undeniably linked to climate change. “There’s no doubt this thing roared onto the scene faster and stronger than anything we’ve seen,” he said, pointing to the accelerated intensity of recent storms as evidence of a warming world.
Bob Henson, a meteorologist and contributor to Yale Climate Connections, noted that Helene’s massive impact was bound to become a focus of the campaign. “Weather disasters are often overlooked as a factor in big elections,” he said. “Helene is a sprawling catastrophe, affecting millions of Americans. And it dovetails with several well-established links between hurricanes and climate change, including rapid intensification and intensified downpours.”
The staggering scale of the storm’s impact has underlined the urgency of addressing climate change. More than 40 trillion gallons of rain drenched the Southeast in just one week—a volume that, if concentrated in North Carolina alone, would cover the entire state in over three feet of water. “That’s an astronomical amount of precipitation,” Ed Clark, head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Water Center, said from Tuscaloosa, Alabama.
During the vice presidential debate, Walz acknowledged Vance’s previous statements recognizing climate change as an issue, but he pointed out the inconsistency within their party, especially Trump’s repeated dismissal of climate science. Trump has called climate change “a hoax” and, during a recent speech, joked that rising sea levels would “make more beachfront property to be able to invest in.”
Trump reiterated his skepticism during a speech on Tuesday, suggesting that “the planet has actually gotten a little bit cooler recently,” and added, “Climate change covers everything.” In fact, global temperature records tell a different story: Summer 2024 was the hottest on record, making it highly likely that this year will end up as the hottest ever measured, according to data from the European climate service Copernicus. The record heat follows a trend of rising global temperatures driven by human-caused climate change, exacerbated by natural El Niño cycles.
Republican JD Vance, an Ohio senator and Trump’s running mate, took a nuanced position during the debate. He said he supports clean air and clean water, and wants a cleaner environment, but did not directly acknowledge the full extent of human-caused climate change. During Trump’s time in office, the administration rolled back over 100 environmental regulations, a point highlighted by Walz.
Instead of directly addressing Trump’s remarks about climate change being a hoax, Vance shifted the discussion to criticize the current administration’s approach. He argued that the Democrats, particularly Harris, were not taking effective steps if they truly believed in the seriousness of climate change. “If you believe that, what would you want to do?” Vance asked rhetorically, suggesting that increased domestic energy production should be the goal. He argued that producing more energy domestically would make the U.S. the “cleanest economy in the entire world.”
Vance also claimed that Biden and Harris’ policies were indirectly benefiting China, criticizing the reliance on imported solar panels and lithium-ion batteries, much of which comes from China. He argued that Democrats’ push for renewable energy was inadvertently boosting Chinese manufacturing.
Walz countered Vance’s claims, highlighting the Inflation Reduction Act—the landmark climate legislation approved in 2022—as a major investment in American-made clean energy. The act, passed with a decisive vote from Harris, aims to accelerate renewable energy production within the U.S. and has already created 200,000 jobs across the country, including in states like Ohio and Minnesota. “We are producing more natural gas and more oil than we ever have,” Walz pointed out. “We’re also producing more clean energy,” emphasizing that the United States could achieve energy independence while also leading the way in renewable energy.
The comments echoed Vice President Harris’s remarks in a previous presidential debate, where she highlighted that the Biden-Harris administration had overseen “the largest increase in domestic oil production in history because of an approach that recognizes that we cannot over rely on foreign oil.” Indeed, crude oil production in the U.S. averaged 12.9 million barrels per day in 2023, surpassing records previously set under Trump, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
Walz further argued that the focus should be on continuing investments in renewable energy, not only because of environmental advocates pushing for the Green New Deal but also because American farmers and everyday citizens are witnessing firsthand the effects of climate change. “My farmers know climate change is real. They’ve seen 500-year droughts, 500-year floods back to back. But what they’re doing is adapting,” he said, acknowledging the resilience of communities that are already adjusting to extreme weather patterns.
“The solution for us is to continue to move forward, to accept that climate change is real,” Walz continued, urging the reduction of fossil fuel reliance while bolstering renewable energy sources. “We are seeing us becoming an energy superpower for the future, not just the current time,” he concluded, positioning the Democratic approach as both practical for today and sustainable for the long-term future.
As Hurricane Helene’s devastating effects continue to shape discussions, climate change has become an unavoidable topic in this election. With candidates from both sides weighing in on the future of energy, the debate over how best to protect American communities and address the growing climate crisis has reached a pivotal moment. Biden and Harris continue to frame climate action as crucial for national resilience, while Trump and Vance navigate a more skeptical line, arguing for economic pragmatism and increased energy independence. How voters respond to these differing visions could significantly influence both environmental policy and the broader direction of the nation in the coming years.
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