Transcript: Swamp Notes — Biden’s climate agenda runs out of steam

This is an audio transcript of the FT News Briefing podcast episode: ‘Swamp Notes — Elections across the Atlantic’

Sonja Hutson
If President Joe Biden’s going to win in November, he needs the support of young voters. Climate change has typically been a big rallying cry for them, and Biden has done a lot to address it during his time in office. But will it be enough to get young voters out to the polls? The FT’s Amy Williams drove down to the swing state of North Carolina to find out.

Amy Williams
So I went to two universities in Raleigh, which is part of North Carolina’s Research Triangle, so quite a few colleges and universities in a very small area. One of them was North Carolina State University. I’m standing outside the Talley Student Union. Temperatures close to 90 degrees here. There are a lot of students milling about, eating snacks and just generally enjoying the sunshine. A lot of the students, they told me that climate change was one of their top concerns.

Cameron
I think it’s a very pressing issue. If we don’t do something right now that it’s going to end everything. We’re kind of at a point where it’s a ticking clock and I’d like to see more action . . . 

Amy Williams
But they couldn’t tell me what Joe Biden had done to tackle climate change. One of them was Cameron. She’s a biology major, and she told me that although climate change was a huge problem . . .

Cameron
Biden specifically, I don’t know too much about his approach, but overall, I don’t feel like we’ve done enough for climate change. I just feel like the policies haven’t been approaching it aggressively enough to make enough a significant impact. So. Yeah.

Amy Williams
And then I asked Cameron the big question would climate change affect how she votes in November?

Cameron
Yes and no. I feel like we don’t have, a politician or like a candidate who really has a better approach. It just, it feels like we’re picking a lesser evil.

Amy Williams
Does that mean that you would consider staying home and not voting?

Cameron
Yeah. I mean, unfortunately, I but it also it’s tough because I want to exercise my right to vote. But at the same time, I just don’t feel like there’s a best candidate out there yet. Yeah.

Sonja Hutson
This is Swamp Notes, the weekly podcast from the FT News Briefing where we talk about all of the things happening in the 2024 US presidential election. I’m Sonja Hutson, and this week we’re asking, has Joe Biden done enough to convince climate voters? Here with me to discuss. Is Amy Williams, the FT’s US climate reporter, who you just heard from? Hey, Amy.

Amy Williams
Hello.

Sonja Hutson
And we’ve also got James Politi, the FT’s Washington bureau chief. Hey, James.

James Politi
Hey, Sonja.

Sonja Hutson
So, Amy, I want to start with you. What has President Biden done on climate change?

Amy Williams
He’s done quite a lot. So the the big flagship theme is obviously the Inflation Reduction Act, just $369bn in subsidies, most of them for green technologies, clean energy change, quite a chunk of change. And that is intended to spark a clean energy boom across the US and help it transition from coal, gas and oil over to nice, clean forms of energy like wind, solar and so on and so forth. There’s also some electric vehicle subsidies in there, so that will also help bring emissions down. That’s the legislative piece. He’s also or his agencies rather have managed to pass a whole bunch of rules and regulations that curtail things like pollution from power plants, fumes from car exhaust. So there’s a lot that’s been going on and collectively it does really add up.

Sonja Hutson
Okay, so yeah, it sounds like he’s done quite a bit, but it doesn’t really seem to be getting through to these young voters in North Carolina. I mean, you could just hear that in Cameron’s voice. James, how significant is that apathy for Biden’s re-election?

James Politi
Well, it could be a critical deficiency for Biden. I mean, young voters are a very important part of his coalition. They were in 2020, on climate specifically, there was a real, kind of drive to get climate voters on board after four years of Trump. There was a deal struck with the left of the Democratic Party to really get the backing of young voters and progressive voters for a more aggressive climate agenda. And some of them feel disappointed, even though he’s ploughed ahead with a lot of these, changes. And I think that there’s going to be a big effort in the next few months to win them back.

Sonja Hutson
Yeah. And we’ve talked about this with some other issues, too. It’s not about these voters turning to Trump. It’s about them feeling so apathetic they may not go out to the polls. Right.

James Politi
Yeah. That’s right. I mean, I think the big concern is that they stay home rather than they flip to Trump and that they are part of that sort of dissatisfied base that Biden is struggling to really, get on board before the election.

Sonja Hutson
Well, so I want to explore a few potential reasons that this kind of gulf exists between what Biden has done on climate and what voters think he’s done. So one criticism that we’ve heard is that these climate projects, the ones that are funded by the Inflation Reduction Act that you mentioned, Amy, they’ve been pretty slow to actually hit the ground. Is there truth to that?

Amy Williams
I think there is truth to it, but I don’t think it’s a policy failure necessarily. I think, you know, it takes time to build a battery factory. You know, it’s just not something that can pop up overnight. I heard one person. Say recently it was a clean energy executive that perhaps the IRA, the fruits of the IRA, will come through six months too late for Joe Biden. I mean, really, it will be after the election where people look around and say, wow, like, look at all these green jobs that popped up in my town, because Biden right now is going around boasting about the green jobs that he’s brought, but they’re not actually quite there yet. Like someone might be building a factory, but no one cares if someone’s building a factory. I mean, that means nothing until there are actually people being employed and the economic benefits are being felt. It’s not going to translate into votes.

Sonja Hutson
James, how would you rate Biden’s messaging on these issues? I mean, could that explain why voters like Cameron, who we heard from, aren’t as familiar with his record, aren’t as familiar with all of these subsidies and factories that are being built under the IRA?

James Politi
Well, I think that there was, you know, maybe a fundamental mistake with the Inflation Reduction Act, even in just the name of the bill. They pitched it as an effort to reduce inflation rather than a bill that would dramatically transform the US economy and make it greener. It was not pitched as a way of, you know, boosting America’s climate transition primarily. And so maybe if it had been called the, you know, Climate Transition Act, it would have had more success from a messaging point of view.

Sonja Hutson
But that would have been harder to message back then because inflation was all anybody could talk about.

James Politi
Yeah, exactly. And so I think that they’ve struggled to really pitch their climate agenda, sort of in the way I think that they had wanted to because of inflation. And I think that climate was sort of sacrifice to bet and the messaging on the kind of altar of bringing gas prices down.

Amy Williams
And also, if you’re a pure climate voter, you’re a young person, let’s say, and this is an issue that you passionately care about. It’s really difficult to ignore the fact that the US is the world’s biggest oil and gas producer, like no number of green jobs or, you know, Inflation Reduction Act rules and regulations like these things are nitty gritty and they don’t, they’re not like easily translates into political messaging. But the fact that the US is the world’s largest oil and gas producer, that’s very easy to understand. And so I think sometimes people come away with that message and then they don’t understand, you know, the climate policy more holistically.

James Politi
And if I could jump in, I mean, Amy just wrote a very interesting FT Big Read on electric vehicles, and that’s also been a top priority for Biden. It’s been a big feature of his climate policies is to boost the distribution, the subsidies for electric vehicles. But it’s not quite at the price point that is really accessible to most American households. And so you’re not seeing that, you know, rush to buy sort of Biden’s EVs because they’re just too expensive. And it might be too late for the election.

Sonja Hutson
So looking forward, what would each of the two candidates, Biden and former President Donald Trump, have planned for climate in their second terms, and what could they actually accomplish of those plans, do you think?

Amy Williams
I suspect that Biden is presiding over the actual rollout of the Inflation Reduction Act. We may begin to see some of those fruits come through more jobs and, you know, transition away from oil and gas. I think there are a couple more rules and regulations you could do. But from speaking to climate activists and the more kind of analyst type person, I think he’s done the bulk of them. The important ones anyway. So I think it’s an implementation in the second term.

Sonja Hutson
Is the fact that there’s no big grand plan for climate for a second Biden term. Maybe contributing to some of this apathy that we are seeing from young voters on climate.

Amy Williams
I don’t know, because when I when I was in North Carolina, they didn’t know what he’d done in his first term. So it follows that they don’t really care what he’s going to do. You know what I mean? It’s it’s weird. Like they say it’s an issue they care about, but they don’t actually follow, like policy movements in that area. Everyone’s just getting on with their lives. Like, not everyone can read the Financial Times every day, but, you know, it’s just like you should. Yeah. I don’t think it’s that. I don’t think it’s the lack of a grand plan that’s holding them back. On Trump, that would be, oh my gosh, I could total 180, right? He would likely pull the US from the Paris Agreement. That would mean the US no longer had a seat at the table at the UN climate talks. I mean, that would be I wouldn’t say catastrophic, actually, because the US, obviously, you know, the world’s largest historical polluter, like such an important geopolitical power to be there on those talks. Domestically he’s threatened to roll back portion of the Inflation Reduction Act. You almost certainly got all those rules and regulations we were talking about. James might might think of more.

James Politi
I mean, I think it would be, a huge rollback of the IRA subsidies to the extent that he can and that he wants to, because there will be some Republicans on the Hill who will say, like, look, we just opened this factory in my district. And a lot of . . . 

Sonja Hutson
In fact, a majority of them are in Republican districts. Right?

James Politi
Right. A lot of the benefits are going to, you know, small towns, in rural America, who are suddenly, you know, re-industrialising on the back of the IRA, got their subsidies all of a sudden. But still, the objective will be there in terms of climate regulation. Certainly, you’re going to see a big change there. And we’ll go back to how things were in the previous Trump administration and then internationally. I think it will be a huge blow to all the climate talks.

Sonja Hutson
All right. We’re going to take a quick break. And when we come back, we’ll do Exit Poll.

[SLOW BURN PODCAST TRAILER PLAYING]

Sonja Hutson
And we are back with Exit Poll, where we talk about something that didn’t happen on the campaign trail and apply rigorous political analysis to it. We’re coming up on July 4th, and that means we are also coming up on the Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating contest.

Audio clip from Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest

Sonja Hutson
Joey Chestnut, the competition’s greatest star who set the record in 2021 for eating 76 hot dogs in ten minutes, has been banned this year from the competition after he signed an endorsement deal with the plant-based hotdog maker Impossible Foods. So how could the crisis at this most important of American institutions impact Biden’s election odds?

Sonja Hutson
Well, I don’t know. Is Trump going to show up in Coney Island? I mean . . .

Sonja Hutson
I don’t know this could be a great political opportunity for him.

James Politi
You never know. He has been he has been doing a lot of campaigning in New York City recently. So you never know, maybe.

Amy Williams
Joey Chestnut, he would clearly be a Democrat. Plant-based things are good for the climate because they limit deforestation and cows. Cows are bad for climate. So great. Great. Good job, Joey Chestnut probably he’s a Democrat. How can someone who can eat 76 hotdogs in one minute? What do you say, ten minutes? Okay. Ten minutes. That like. Yeah, I think they’re man of the people, right?

James Politi
It’s probably easier to eat 76 plant-based hotdogs.

Amy Williams
Because you think you might just be . . .

Sonja Hutson
No. Well, the ones that I buy, because my roommate is vegetarian, they’re like, they’re much bigger than regular hot dogs. I think they’d be harder to eat.

Amy Williams
Maybe he’s going for the challenge, then.

Sonja Hutson
Well, Joey Chestnut, we’ll see you on the campaign trail. I want to thank our guests. Amy Williams, the FT’s US climate reporter. Thanks, Amy.

Amy Williams
Thank you.

Sonja Hutson
And James Politi, he’s our Washington bureau chief. Thanks, James.

James Politi
Thank you.

Sonja Hutson
This is Swamp Notes, the US politics show from the FT News Briefing. If you want to sign up for the Swamp Notes newsletter, we’ve got a link to that in the show notes.

Our show is mixed and produced by Ethan Plotkin. It’s also produced by Lauren Fedor and Marc Filippino. Special thanks to Pierre Nicholson. I’m your host, Sonja Hutson. Our executive producer is Topher Forhecz, and Cheryl Brumley is the FT’s global head of Audio. Original music by Hannis Brown. Check back next week for more US political analysis from the Financial Times.