Why Aren’t the Presidential Candidates Talking Much About Climate Change? – Recap

Why is climate change not a bigger issue in the 2024 electoral campaign?  The Inflation Reduction Act, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, and the Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors (CHIPS) Act were some of the nation’s most successful legislative achievements of the last decade, and they were all initiated also by the executive branch.  And yet neither presidential candidate is making these policy achievements, responsible for creating thousands of jobs to spend billions of dollars, prominent topics of their campaigns. 

While President Biden and congressional candidates from both parties are likely to address the economic development, job creation, and infrastructure improvements brought by these initiatives, they do not often mention part of the president’s motivation for his leadership on these matters, the effort to manage climate change.  In the “thick” of the campaign, we seek through this conference to take a step back and ask broader questions about political polarization, party politics, and one of the most under-considered campaign issues of our time. 

On October 17th, CECE co-sponsored an event along with other American University schools and centers on this topic. Below is a full stream of the event.