Examining Efforts to Elect Climate Candidates

On this week’s episode of Political Climate, we speak to organizations attempting to put climate change at the center of races up and down the ballot.

Julia Pyper October 08, 2020

Julia Pyper

Senior Editor
Greentech Media

Julia Pyper is a Senior Editor at Greentech Media covering the energy transition. She is also the host and producer of the Political Climate podcast. She previously reported for E&E Publishing, and has covered clean energy and climate change issues across the U.S. and abroad, including in India, Haiti, Israel and the Maldives. She holds degrees from McGill and Columbia Universities. Find her on Twitter @JMPyper.

Although climate change remains a polarizing issue, research shows that a majority of Americans want the government to act more aggressively on climate issues.

So how do you elect political candidates who will make the issue a priority? In this episode of Political Climate, we speak to two groups attempting to figure that out and putting climate change at the center of races up and down the ballot.

In 2018, Caroline Spears launched the Climate Cabinet Action Fund to offer targeted climate data, policy ideas and messaging suggestions to candidates and lawmakers. The organization currently focuses on the state level, where races are low-budget but highly consequential. We speak to Caroline about the policy “menus” that Climate Cabinet creates for individual candidates and dig into the role that special interests play in the election infrastructure of both the Republican and Democratic parties.

Later in the show, we turn to Karyn Strickler, founder and president of Vote Climate U.S. PAC, a political action committee tracking key races in the U.S. House and Senate and ranking candidates based on their climate record.