The climate crisis is intensifying every year. From deadly, record-breaking heatwaves and forest fires to rising sea levels, the devastating impacts of man-made climate change are being felt across the globe. But you would hardly know there was a crisis after watching the 2024 Democratic National Convention. TRNN Editor-in-Chief Maximillian Alvarez speaks with Collin Rees, political director at Oil Change US, about the shocking lack of urgency on addressing the climate emergency at the DNC in Chicago.
Videography: Kayla Rivara
Post-Production: Adam Coley
Transcript
Collin Rees: I’m Colin Rees, Political Director at Oil Change US.
Maximillian Alvarez: Colin, thanks so much for talking to me, man. It’s been a wild week. We are here on Thursday, Aug. 22, the Democratic National Convention has officially ended. Kamala Harris has formally accepted the nomination, and now it’s a full-on sprint to the general election.
I wanted to talk to you specifically because it felt, to me, very obvious that one of the most absent issues throughout the course of this week is the climate. And of course, on the Republican side at the RNC, they’re calling climate change a total hoax. This is just old jazzy standards of the right. I guess, how did you feel looking back on the week about how much climate change and climate policy was addressed, or wasn’t, this week?
Collin Rees: I thought it was a huge missed opportunity. I think there is no question that the Democratic Party is better than the Republicans on climate, but I think the key problem there is that better than the Republicans is the lowest bar imaginable. That’s not going to get it done.
And so I think, in particular, the way the presidential election has unfolded, the lack of a real primary, the substitution of Kamala Harris, hasn’t allowed for that richer discussion that we need, raising the bar on what’s needed on climate. And I think that’s concerning from a climate policy standpoint, but it’s also a deep political vulnerability.
If Kamala is not able to or willing to put out a bold climate platform, be specific about what she’s going to do to phase out fossil fuels and build out renewable energy, that could very much hurt her. Youth voters care deeply about this, voters on the front lines of extraction and of climate impacts care deeply about this issue, and so I think it’s a really missed opportunity.
Maximillian Alvarez: And I want to ask if you could just underscore for folks out there watching and listening where we are with the climate crisis right now, because it’s the thing that people love to put out of sight, out of mind, as the planet continues to warm, as the world continues to break apart into something we are not prepared for. So, from your vantage point, where are we right now with the climate crisis, and how does that square with the apparent lack of urgency here at the Democratic National Convention and in this election in general?
Collin Rees: Max, vibes are bad. We are not in a good place on the climate crisis. And in particular, we have seen, this is the hottest year on record. We are breaking temperature records several days in a row in July, I believe. We’re seeing flooding in Connecticut and other places across the country. We have Hurricane Beryl hitting the Gulf Coast. Wildfire is starting out West again. These climate impacts are here to stay and they’re only getting worse.
I think the other really dangerous thing that happens when you have this lack of discussion at the DNC, for instance, is that space is not just left empty in a vacuum, that space is filled by actors like ExxonMobil, by actors like oily Texas Democrats who would like to delay and deny climate action, block climate action.
I think there is this prevailing sense in the media in particular, the mainstream media, that the IRA was passed, the Inflation Reduction Act under Joe Biden, we’ve done some of the things on climate, and so there’s not a need to focus anymore. That couldn’t be further from the truth.
Not only was that, at best, a down payment on the climate action that we need, but some of the deeply irresponsible and dangerous trade-offs that were made in the IRA are coming to fruition and are starting to boost the fossil fuel industry, starting to give it new life.
You have false solutions like carbon capture and storage, dirty hydrogen. These things the fossil fuel industry is using to cling to its existence by continuing fossil fuel production, doubling down on oil and gas expansion, and its political existence as well.
The idea that you can continue to have a fossil fuel industry as long as you suck carbon out of the air, these fanciful, unbelievably expensive ideas where the technology doesn’t even exist, set that all aside for a moment. The main point from the lobby industry, from the fossil fuel industry’s side, is that they’re still in the room.
They’re still making these decisions about climate policy. They’re still hosting and sponsoring panels on the sidelines of the DNC despite donating vastly more to Republicans than to Democrats. They just want to stay in the conversation, they just want to stay afloat to continue that private profit greed machine, and I think that’s one of the less talked about things when you don’t have the proper discussion that you should on climate.
Maximillian Alvarez: And as far as the climate justice movement is concerned, what would a bold climate platform look like? And from your perspective as someone who covers this day in, day out, what is it going to actually take to get there?
Collin Rees: It’s going to take political will. The science is extremely clear on this. We have a lot of the tools. A lot of those tools are actually executive branch tools, too. The President can do this. We certainly need Congress to come along, and that would be great, but there’s so much that Kamala can do just by herself.
Where we’re at right now is that we are seeing major gains in renewable energy. That’s great. Wind and solar are coming along. They could be faster, and they need to be, but we’re getting there.
What we’re not seeing is a corresponding phase out of fossil fuels. Or, even barring that, we’re not even seeing an end to fossil fuel expansion. The first step is to stop digging when you’re in a hole, and we’re not even doing that.
So what we really need to see specific action on is to constrain that expansion of the fossil fuel industry and to start to phase it out. That’s a few things. It’s taking the Biden pause on new LNG export authorizations and making it permanent, saying, we will not be issuing new export authorizations for LNG.
It’s rejecting the Dakota access pipeline. People don’t necessarily know this, this is DAPL, this is the pipeline that was bravely resisted by the Standing Rock Sioux during late Obama years. It was approved by Trump, but it was approved illegally, and the judge has said that. He sent it back to the Department of the Interior and it’s sitting on their desk right now waiting to be approved or not. That pipeline could be shut down, could be taken out of the ground, even could be capped. That’s a decision that will be waiting on Kamala Harris’s desk if she’s president next spring.
Ending fossil fuel subsidies is another really critical piece here. We have to stop sending tens of billions of dollars a year towards making the problem worse and start redirecting that money toward a livable future.
Maximillian Alvarez: And last question, man. For folks out there, voters who are thinking about this as, well, that’s a distant issue. This is not an immediate issue like stopping a second Trump presidency, or for people who are still caught in that mental frame, what would you want folks out there to know who are going to maybe see this and recoil at first? What is the climate justice movement’s message to people about why they need to care about this now, in this election and beyond?
Collin Rees: Yeah. I think not only is this an issue that is critical here at home, we’re seeing the mounting climate impacts. This is a crucial effort issue in which global leadership is sorely needed. The US is falling behind all its peer nations in terms of these commitments to phase out fossil fuels. This is an area where America can lead and can work for that brighter future, but it’s not guaranteed. We’re not going to get there unless we actively take those steps.
I guess I would just say the other thing here is that I think there’s this false perception, frankly, bought by the fossil fuel industry and its donations, that climate is a losing issue or that tackling the fossil fuel industry is not popular politically.
That couldn’t be further from the truth. We have very good polling and data showing large majorities of the American people want to take down the fossil fuel industry. People don’t like big oil. People don’t like Exxon fucking up their water. People don’t like Chevron polluting their communities. People don’t like these companies and the oil industry making their lives a living hell.
A majority of Pennsylvanians want to ban fracking. This is something where the American people are very much on the side of aggressive action, and the only people who don’t want that action is the American Petroleum Institute, is the fossil fuel industry lobby.
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