Climate group will spend $80 million to tout Biden’s environmental record
By Ella Nilsen, CNN
(CNN) — Advocacy group Climate Power is committing $80 million in advertising to call attention to President Joe Biden’s climate and environment agenda ahead of the 2024 election, the group announced Monday.
The ad campaign broadly aims to inform voters about the president’s wide-ranging climate and clean energy agenda. As he took office, Biden set ambitious targets to cut the country’s planet-warming emissions. He also presided over the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, the largest legislative climate investment in US history.
Yet even as Biden has directed his administration to prioritize climate change and clean energy, polling this summer shows his message isn’t getting through to voters.
A July Washington Post/University of Maryland poll found that less than a third of Americans polled knew a great deal about the IRA, compared to 71% who had heard a little or nothing about it. But the same poll found respondents broadly supportive of the initiatives in the bill, including tax subsidies to defray the cost of purchasing an electric vehicle, solar panels, or energy efficient heating and cooling systems.
The same poll found 57% of Americans disapproved of how Biden has handled the issue of climate change.
“People overwhelmingly support what President Biden has done to combat climate change — but only if they hear about it,” said Lori Lodes, executive director of Climate Power. “Our campaign plans to bridge the information gap around the clean energy plan by meeting Americans where they are and telling the story of our climate progress.”
Climate Power is launching digital and television ads and plans to continue spending on both platforms heading into 2024, according to a fact sheet provided by the group. It is launching a campaign to mobilize Latino voters on the issue and focusing on digital campaigns to reach young voters on social media. The group is also organizing in-person events in key battleground states including Arizona, Georgia and Michigan.
Climate Power has an ad campaign partnership with Future Forward, whose nonprofit arm helped pay for some of its spots so far this year.
In addition to Climate Power’s new campaign, Biden also received the support of four environmental groups earlier this year: LCV Action Fund, NextGen PAC, the Sierra Club and the NRDC Action Fund jointly endorsed Biden in June, the first time all four groups have done so.
The Biden administration has also received praise from the youth-led climate group the Sunrise Movement after moving to create the first ever American Climate Corps. But the president has also been criticized by environmental groups for green lighting some major fossil fuel projects, including the Willow Project in Alaska and the Mountain Valley Pipeline in West Virginia.
CORRECTION: This headline and story have been updated to clarify the type of ads from Climate Power and to reflect that the nonprofit arm of Future Forward helped pay for some of its ads.
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