Young climate advocates think Harris can do more for the environment than Biden, despite his wins

President Joe Biden may have passed the United States’ most significant climate legislation ever, but many young environmental activists say they see Kamala Harris as stronger on the issue.

Representatives from 11 organizations devoted to elevating young voters’ concerns about climate change said Harris’ record of going after big oil companies as a prosecutor and her co-sponsorship of the Green New Deal as a senator make her a more appealing candidate than Biden, despite his environmental wins.

“She has a history around holding Big Oil accountable in a way that we haven’t been able to do in the last four years,” said Aru Shiney-Ajay, 26, the executive director of the Sunrise Movement, which pushes for government interventions to address climate change.

The Green New Deal Network, a coalition of 19 progressive environmental and social justice organizations including the Sunrise Movement, endorsed Harris this week but had not previously issued an endorsement for Biden.

The Biden administration’s record on climate issues has been relatively strong: The Inflation Reduction Act, the largest investment in climate action in U.S. history, allocated nearly $370 billion to environmental efforts. And the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act included investments in clean energy, electric vehicle infrastructure, public transit and climate resilience work.

But several young climate activists ages 16 to 29 said for them, the expansion of the fossil fuel industry during Biden’s presidency has clouded those successes.

Oil companies have seen higher profits and U.S. oil exports have been higher under Biden than under President Donald Trump, Reuters reported. Biden also approved the Willow oil-drilling project in Alaska and fast-tracked construction of the Mountain Valley Pipeline in Virginia and West Virginia.

“It’s frankly been frustrating to see that this current administration, despite claiming leadership on climate, has approved so many fossil fuel projects,” said Keanu Arpels-Josiah, 19, an organizer with Fridays for Future, the international youth-led climate group started by Greta Thunberg.

The White House did not respond to requests for comment.

Vice President Harris delivers remarks during a tour of Lake Mead in 2021.Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images file

Dana Fisher, director of the Center for Environment, Community and Equity at American University, said it’s not that young voters are ignoring Biden’s work on climate — they just want to see more.

“The young people know it’s not enough because they recognize how severe the climate crisis is,” Fisher said.

She added that a couple youth climate leaders told her in the spring they were discouraging their members from voting in the presidential election at all.

“I was like, ‘Are you kidding me? Don’t you remember what happened in 2000?’” Fisher said, referring to the razor-thin margin that decided that year’s presidential election. “Which, of course they didn’t, because if they were alive, they were like in diapers. It’s very hard to have a long view when you’re younger.”

Since Biden dropped out of the race, Fisher said, the young climate activists she has talked to seem more likely to vote.

Harris’ young supporters have highlighted the settlements she secured as California attorney general with Chevron, BP and ConocoPhillips over their handling of hazardous materials.

“Biden is a lot more moderate in terms of his policy approach, whereas Kamala isn’t afraid to tackle environmental and climate policy in a way that really gets at the root, especially with polluters,” said Iris Zhan, 20, a youth advisory board member at the Global Youth Storytelling and Research Lab, which engages youth leaders in climate and environmental justice research.

Harris has brought up that early-career work in some of her initial campaign appearances.

“As district attorney, to go after polluters, I created one of the first environmental justice units in our nation,” she said on July 22 in Wilmington, Delaware, referring to her time as district attorney of San Francisco. “Donald Trump stood in Mar-a-Lago and told Big Oil lobbyists he would do their bidding for a $1 billion campaign contribution.”

Then-Sen. Kamala Harris meets with Gov. Gavin Newsom and CalFire officials to review the devastation of the Creek fire in Pineridge, Calif., on Sept. 15, 2020. Carlos Avila Gonzalez / The San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images file

Harris’ California background also seems to resonate with some young environmentalists.

Zanagee Artis, 24, a cofounder of a climate justice organization called Zero Hour, said because California regularly experiences the effects of the climate crisis — drought, heat waves, wildfires — that could “be a huge value for empathizing with young people who are fighting so hard for climate justice.”

Young activists have pointed to Harris’ climate platform during her 2020 presidential campaign, as well: At the time, she pledged to invest $10 trillion into climate action over 10 years and set a goal to transition to a 100% clean energy economy by 2045.

“I want her to be able to set that bar and not just fall into what the Biden administration was doing,” said Natalie Bookout, who will turn 18 in October and leads the Charlotte, North Carolina, chapter of the Sunrise Movement.

Sunrise Movement protesters gather near Vice President Harris' Brentwood home on April 14, calling on her to urge President Biden to declare a climate emergency.Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images file

Heather Hargreaves, the executive director of campaigns at Climate Power, a communications organization focused on electing climate leaders, said it’s possible that among young people, “there’s just been a knowledge gap on what President Biden has done in the last three years.” 

A spokesperson for Harris’ campaign said she plans to build on the climate legislation in the Inflation Reduction Act but did not answer questions about her appeal over Biden with young environmentalists.

The spokesperson also clarified that although Harris said in 2019 she would ban fracking if elected president, she no longer supports such a ban.

“She doesn’t want to turn off people who are in fossil-fuel extractive states,” Fisher said. “She’s not going to end up with as progressive a platform as she had when she was in California. However, is she going to be more progressive than Biden? I expect she will be.”

Vice President Kamala Harris looks at the hyperwall during a climate change discussion at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center on Nov. 5, 2021 in Greenbelt, Maryland.Olivier Douliery / AFP via Getty Images file

Harris has secured endorsements from dozens of environmental groups and more than 350 leaders in the environmental movement — support that is not typically difficult for Democrats to earn. She even seems to have raised the eyebrows of a few young conservative environmentalists.

“Our members are mostly conservative, but at the end of the day, they appreciate hearing from younger elected officials because they realize that those elected officials sort of have more skin in the game in the climate conversation,” said Stephen Perkins, 29, the chief operating officer of the American Conservation Coalition, a group that mobilizes Republican voters around climate action.

Among adults ages 18 to 29, 59% of those surveyed in a recent Pew Research poll said dealing with global climate change should be a top foreign policy priority — a higher share than among any other age group surveyed.

Harris has only been a presidential candidate for less than two weeks, however, so she has yet to get into the full details of her climate platform.

 “We’ve got a lot of time,” Fisher said.