Climate Change Finally on Radar in US Presidential Campaign

Climate change has emerged as a significant issue in the US presidential election cycle, the head of the League of Conservation Voters told Sputnik on Friday.

PARIS (Sputnik), Daria Chernyshova — The United States is to elect a new president in November 2016, with candidates already vying for their party’s nomination.

"For the first time ever, climate change is an important part of conversation, the voters say they care about it," Gene Karpinski, who is the president of the League of Conservation Voters, a US grassroots group promoting environmental legislation, said.

Climate change has been propelled to the top of the US political agenda after the start of the climate summit in Paris, which seeks to strike a new binding deal that will help stem global warming. It will come into being after the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2020.

Karpinski said global warming has exposed deep divisions between the Republican and Democratic camps, with all the leading GOP candidates – Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, and Ben Carson – emerging as climate change deniers.

In the Democratic party’s candidate pool, the presidential hopefuls are competing to suggest a better and more ambitious plan.

"We want to make sure that our next president would be a climate champion, not a climate denier," Karpinski stressed.

Former US State Secretary Hillary Clinton, who remains the Democratic nomination frontrunner, said in July it was time to make the United States the world’s clean energy superpower.