Saving democracy can save the climate — and vice versa 

Many distinguished Americans, including President Biden, believe that saving democracy is the most critical issue in the November election. Others think it’s the rapidly growing climate crisis. Both views are correct, because the stability of democracy and the climate are inextricably connected.

Scores of American thought leaders — scientists, writers, former government officials and environmental activists — made that point last week in a statement published in the Washington Post. (In the interest of full disclosure, I am one of the signers, and the Presidential Climate Action Project is one of the ad’s sponsors.) The statement points out that we can’t conquer climate change without a healthy democracy, and we can’t sustain democracy without conquering global warming. Let’s break it down.  

Democracy is necessary because, as we have seen over the last 70 years shows, only voters can overcome the power of the fossil energy industry.  

The record shows that elements of the oil industry knew in the 1950s that their products were causing global warming. The government’s top climate scientist briefed Congress in 1988 that warming already was evident in the U.S. 

In 1992, the Senate blessed, and President George H.W. Bush signed, the first international climate treaty, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. It promised the U.S. would work with the rest of the world to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions. But Congress has failed ever since to take the most decisive action. In 2003 and again in 2008, it failed to pass bills to put a price on carbon emissions, a step economists agreed was the most effective solution. 

In 2006, President George W. Bush, a former Texas oil man, famously declared that “America is addicted to oil.” Yet despite repeated attempts by Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden, Congress has refused to stop subsidizing this drug. Fossil fuels have received taxpayer subsidies for over a century; they still get tens of billions of taxpayer dollars yearly.  

All these years later, despite all the warnings of climate science, fossil fuels still provide more than 80 percent of America’s energy. And after dipping during the pandemic, America’s greenhouse gas emissions increased by 5.7 percent from 2020 to 2022. 

In 2022, Congress passed legislation filled with carrots for clean energy, but no sticks for fossil fuels. In fact, the Inflation Reduction Act only passed Congress because of several concessions to fossil fuels. The history is testimony to the industry’s political power.  

And in recent years, the U.S. Supreme Court has made it even more powerful, by ruling in 2010 (Citizens United v. FEC) that corporations and wealthy individuals can give unlimited amounts of money to political campaigns and constraining the government’s ability to regulate pollution at national scale (West Virginia v. EPA in 2022, Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council in 2024). 

Today, 123 Republicans in the current Congress still deny that climate change is real or human-caused. And the Republican nominee for president still contends that climate change is a hoax.  

It’s clear that the voting muscle of individual Americans can overcome the power of the oil, gas and coal industries. Unfortunately, voters have not yet risen to the challenge by keeping climate deniers out of public office.  

So, what about the converse — the threat climate change poses to democracy? When problems beset a nation and leaders fail to help solve them, people lose faith in government. As 2024 began, Gallup reported that only 28 percent of American adults were happy with the way democracy is working. 

But today’s unsolved problems are nothing compared to what’s ahead if climate change is not effectively addressed. TIME senior correspondent Justin Worland puts it well: “The challenges created by climate change — unchecked migration, economic stagnation, and the loss of homeland, to name a few — are precisely the kind of developments that have historically fomented authoritarian sentiments.”

Today’s immigration problem is merely a sample of what’s to come as climate impacts escalate.  The Brennan Center notes that the disturbing scenes on our southern border are “a stark reminder that both political parties need to seriously reckon with an issue that will only become more prominent as the climate crisis exacerbates the conditions which push people to migrate to the United States.” Researchers estimate that in the most extreme future, more than 30 million climate migrants will seek refuge in the U.S. over the next 30 years. 

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reports that “changes in our climate and our oceans are having very real and profound effects on communities, businesses, and the natural resources we depend on.” The U.S. Treasury Department says climate inflation already affects household finances nationwide, with 13 percent of Americans reporting economic hardship due to climate-related disasters. 

Other researchers note that climate change is pushing up consumer prices worldwide. They predict food prices will rise as much as 1.8 percent annually within a decade, causing overall inflation to increase by nearly 1 percent yearly. 

Deloitte, the prominent management consultant, notes that, on our present course, climate change will slow economic growth worldwide, creating losses of up to $178 trillion due to declines in productivity, jobs, standards of living and well-being. The most vulnerable industries are agriculture, conventional energy, manufacturing, transportation and construction, the company says. 

Defense and security analysts have warned for years that climate change threatens international and domestic security. In 2008, the National Intelligence Assessment warned, “Climate change will have wide-ranging implications for U.S. national security interests over the next 20 years.” The Department of Homeland Security cautioned in 2012 that climate impacts could directly affect America’s critical infrastructure. 

The highly regarded medical journal Lancet reports that air pollution from fossil fuels kills 1.2 million people worldwide yearly, including 11,800 in the U.S. “Our health is at the mercy of fossil fuels,” according to Marina Romanello, executive director of Lancet’s annual report on health and climate change.  

Worland correctly concludes, “Something needs to change so that the policy timeline in democracies can match the urgency of the climate crisis.” 

In their statement in the Washington Post, the signers note, “Both the assault on democracy and climate chaos are on the ballot in 2024. They are converging crises that threaten to destroy our common future….Without an engaged, competent, and supportive citizenry — the ‘mighty reservoir of experience, knowledge, beauty, love and deed’ — no government can cope with the full effects of a destabilizing climate.” 

It’s true that the U.S. cannot solve the climate crisis alone, but the world can’t solve the climate crisis without the U.S. So, as voters check the boxes on their ballots two months from now, they will decide two interrelated questions: “Will America’s future be stable and secure?” and “Can government by the people long endure? 

William S. Becker is executive director of the Presidential Climate Action Project and a former senior official at the U.S. Department of Energy.