While conservatives mock climate ‘doom and gloom’ at the DNC, Democrats are doing something about it

For all the stumbles in convention speeches this week, here is the nub: we have about a decade before climate breakdown runs away from us, irreversibly. At least one party is acknowledging it

Greenland’s melting ice sheet is past the point of no return; Death Valley climbed to the hottest temperature ever on Earth (130F); fatalities are mounting from a summer of floods in regions of China and the Indian subcontinent. This is the climate news. This week alone.

If it wasn’t already abundantly clear, the climate is in crisis and it’s well past time for the “break glass in case of emergency” plan.

Not that you’d know it from conservatives. “Gloom and doom!”, “Doom and gloom!” rang the mockery across Fox News this week, castigating the Democrats’ convention for highlighting America’s myriad of challenges: Among them the Covid-19 pandemic, the ravaged economy, gun violence, and the overarching climate emergency.

But one person’s “doom and gloom” is another’s lived reality. This was no more aptly captured than by the voices of young people who spoke during the “tackling climate change” segment on Wednesday, the night the convention pivoted to policy.

Alexandria Villaseñor, a teen protester whose asthma flared dangerously while visiting California during the Camp Fire wildfires in 2018; Andrew Adamski, a Wisconsite farmer, whose 120-year-old family farm has switched to sustainable methods, because “the effects of climate change are happening right in front of us”.

And Afro-Latina activist Katherine Lorenzo, who spoke to her experiences growing up with pollution in a low-income neighbourhood – a childhood that speaks to how people of color and the poor, time and again, disproportionately bear the brunt.

“Climate change is impacting us now and it’s robbing my generation of a future,” said Villaseñor, who has been striking each Friday for the past two years in front of the United Nations in New York.

The youth activists followed after a video clip made with cinematic flair (and an Oscar-worthy voiceover from a Pennsylvania union worker called Rob) which joined the dots from NASA’s moon landing in 1969 to the tech innovations that will be needed to tackle the crisis today.

“Maybe you’ve read some of the millions of pages of scientific evidence on climate change or maybe you’ve felt it as you walked the neighbourhood,” Rob said, as images of flooding, hurricanes and wildfires, flicked across the screen.

Not to say there haven’t been blunders. Climate was never going to be an easy topic to drill down into with the pandemic-friendly virtual format. New Mexico governor Michelle Lujan Grisham’s speech was an earnest but plodding intro on the third night of a convention that’s already seen “considerably” lower viewing figures compared to 2016.

Powerful progressive voices on the issue, such as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, champion of the Green New Deal and co-chair of Joe Biden’s climate panel, were criminally under-used. The popular congresswoman from New York was given just a 90-second appearance to make a symbolic nomination of former presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders ahead of Tuesday’s delegate roll call.

Sen. Sanders, the Democratic socialist from Vermont, had been granted a lengthier slot on Monday, an apparent nod to all the “unity” that’s taking place in the Democratic party among the establishment and progressive wings.

But Sanders, who was always going to be one of the most rousing speakers and didn’t disappoint, fairly galloped through all the ground to cover.

He had just enough time to squeeze in climate policy snippets – Rebuild crumbling infrastructure! Transition to 100 per cent clean electricity! Good-paying jobs! – before his Zoom call time was up.

And then there was that awkwardly-timed revelation on Tuesday that the DNC had dropped language calling for an end to fossil fuel subsidies from its platform – despite both Biden and newly-minted VP candidate Kamala Harris campaigning on the issue.

It sparked outrage from climate voters and progressive activists, who have followed Sanders' lead and fallen in line to back a more moderate ticket.

An email earlier this week from Tamara Toles O’Laughlin, director of 350.org, an environmental organization that campaigns to end fossil fuels, warned they would be holding the potential White House occupants accountable for their promises.

(Biden’s camp has since said he “continues to be committed to ending US fossil fuel subsidies and then rallying the rest of the world to do the same”).

But for all the stumbles, here is the nub. We have about a decade before climate breakdown runs away from us, irreversibly. The window to stay below the 1.5C of heating, set out by the Paris agreement, is rapidly closing.

And after four years of Donald Trump’s climate denial, attacks on science, ditching of our allies and a tsunami of environmental rollbacks, here was 15 minutes of clunky and sober party political broadcasting that said: We get it. And we’ve got a plan for that.

"We can, and we will, deal with climate change. It's not only a crisis, it's an enormous opportunity,” said Biden during remarks at the close of the convention on Thursday, as he accepted the nomination.

Throw all the hyperboles of pessimism at it you want. It’s the best shot we’ve got.