Where to find climate change on your ballot if that’s a top voting concern

The devastating and deadly impacts of Hurricanes Helene and Milton in the final weeks of the 2024 election have once again put the climate crisis top of mind for voters across the country. For many Coloradans, who’ve been impacted by severe droughts and unprecedented wildfires in recent years, climate issues have long been a priority.

Climate change, the environment and natural resources, as a category, were among the top concerns identified by more than 7,000 Coloradans who have responded to the Voter Voices survey by Colorado media outlets, including The Denver Post.

Self-described liberal and moderate respondents were far more likely to say climate and the environment were a top issue than conservatives — a trend that’s consistent with the results of the Colorado Health Foundation’s 2024 Pulse poll. It found that while 80% of Democrats believe climate change is an “extremely” or “very” serious problem, fewer than 1 in 10 Republicans say the same.

Thousands of scientists who contribute to periodic reports published by the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change wrote in 2021 that the science of human-caused global warming is “unequivocal”: Greenhouse gases emitted into the atmosphere by human activity, mostly through the combustion of fossil fuels, are responsible for virtually all of the warming observed since the mid-18th century.

Over the last two decades, higher temperatures in the Colorado River basin have been the main driver of a “megadrought” that hydrologists have found is worse than any dry spell the region has experienced in at least 1,200 years. At the same time, experts say current levels of global warming make extreme rainfall — like that experienced in the Southeast during Hurricane Helene — significantly more likely in major storms.

Colorado, the federal government and many foreign countries have taken steps towards a gradual transition from fossil fuels to clean energy over the next several decades. They’ve made important, incremental progress in lowering projected future emissions, making the worst-case scenarios for the climate by the end of the 21st century less likely. But efforts to date have fallen well short of science-based goals, and we’re still on track to roughly double the planet’s current level of warming.

If climate change, the environment and natural resources are top concerns for you, here is where your vote has the most impact.

The presidential race

President Joe Biden’s signature climate policy, the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, included about $370 billion in new federal funding and tax incentives for clean energy technologies like wind and solar generation, electric vehicles, more efficient home appliances and much more.

The Biden administration has paired the IRA’s incentives with major new Environmental Protection Agency rules aimed at limiting emissions from cars, power plants and oil and gas infrastructure — an illustration of the power of the presidency to shape domestic energy and climate policy. Altogether, these efforts add up to what is by far the most ambitious set of climate-action policies in U.S. history.

But a recent analysis estimated they will achieve only about half of the emissions reductions recommended by scientists over the next decade.

Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, credits the IRA’s tax incentives with helping to create 800,000 new manufacturing jobs during Biden’s term, and she promises to “build on (the administration’s) historic work” in confronting the climate crisis.

At the same time, Harris has backed off her previous support for a ban on fracking and instead boasts on the campaign trail that under Biden, domestic oil and gas production has reached its highest levels ever.

Former President Donald Trump has long called climate change a “hoax,” and during his term in office he oversaw a sweeping rollback of Obama-era emissions regulations. He has preferred regulations that encourage energy development.

The Washington Post reported in May that Trump asked a group of the country’s top oil executives to contribute $1 billion to his campaign during a meeting at his Mar-a-Lago Club, pledging once again to reverse dozens of climate and environmental rules enacted by Biden’s EPA and other federal agencies.

Congressional races

The battle for control of the U.S. House is expected to come down to just a handful of congressional races across the country, likely including Colorado’s 8th Congressional District. Congress, by passing laws, could play a pivotal role in determining whether the IRA and other Biden-era climate policies are preserved and expanded, or weakened and repealed.

In questionnaires published in its online voter guide, The Denver Post asked congressional candidates what action they’d support to address climate change and how they think Congress should balance greenhouse gas reduction with the need for new energy development.