The next president of the United States must be prepared to take bolder, faster climate action than any leader has before. It would be a massive failure by the media to omit asking the next leader of our country questions about one of the planet’s most pressing threats during the presidential debates.

Climate change is the most significant environmental threat to the planet, and its global nature means there are not just economic and social reasons to address it, but international political reasons as well. This makes it far more than an “environmental question.” This makes it a question that’s deep and central to national security.

Over the 20 Democratic and Republican debates in 2016, out of 1,477 questions asked, debate moderators only asked 22 questions about climate change—just 1.5 percent of the 1,477 questions posed. During the fourth Democratic primary debate in 2019, moderators didn’t ask one single climate change question.

This is very disturbing given the encompassing impact of climate change on the U.S. economy, natural disasters, human health, agriculture… the list goes on and on.

We need to put climate change on the national political stage. We need the next two presidential debates  to include the topic of the climate crisis.

The first debate between the presidential candidates and the vice presidential debate did include a climate question. This must continue!