That climate change is real and requires our urgent, sustained attention is something almost all Democrats agree on. So leave it to the Democratic National Committee to turn it into a source of party infighting. 

In early June, presidential candidate and Washington State governor Jay Inslee announced that the DNC had denied his request to dedicate one of 12 planned primary debates entirely to climate change—an idea that youth activist groups like US Youth Climate Strikes had been proposing for some time. The DNC also forbade Inslee from participating in any unsanctioned debates on the subject, or he would be barred from the official DNC debates. 

The backlash has been intense, with high-profile Democrats, environmental groups, and a majority of the 23 Democratic presidential candidates asking the DNC to reverse course—so much so that DNC chairperson Tom Perez felt compelled to publish an essay on Medium defending his position. In it, he acknowledged that climate change is an urgent threat that imperils the planet, but said that rules were rules:

"When we began engaging with presidential campaigns in February of this year, we articulated the terms of engagement clearly and unequivocally. . . . We made it clear that the DNC would hold 12 sanctioned debates this cycle focused on a range of issues, and that candidates participating in unsanctioned debates would not be invited to participate in the next DNC-sanctioned debate. Every single campaign was informed of these rules at their initial briefing with the DNC; not a single one of them objected."

This may all be true, but the optics could hardly be worse. In a statement about the decision, Inslee said, “The DNC is silencing the voices of Democratic activists, many of our progressive partner organizations, and nearly half of the Democratic presidential field, who want to debate the existential crisis of our time.”

Perez especially infuriated climate activists—and, well, pretty much anyone who has thought deeply about climate change—by saying it would be unfair to elevate this single issue above any of the other pressing issues that a new president will face. The Sunrise Movement, the youth activist group best known for promoting the Green New Deal, responded on Twitter, saying “The @DNC’s excuses for refusing to hold a #ClimateDebate shows the depth of the political establishment's misunderstanding of climate change. Climate change isn't one issue, it's every issue.”

Or, as author and activist Naomi Klein put it, “Climate is not an ‘issue’—it's the backdrop for all other issues. It's the fabric of life on Earth and it is unravelling.”

Indeed, the climate crisis rises above other issues because of both the vast scope of the problem—it will become increasingly inseparable from issues like immigration, national security, the economy, and public health—and the complexity of the solutions. Voters need to hear different ideas about, for example, when and how to completely transition society to renewable energy; the interplay between government subsidies, regulations, and private sector innovation; and how to draw down the carbon dioxide currently in the atmosphere.

In his Medium post, Perez acknowledged that television networks virtually ignored climate change in the 2016 election debates and assured voters that this would not happen again. But without time and space specifically allotted for climate change, what hope do viewers have for a substantial discussion? As one analyst at the Sierra Club put it, “If left to the networks, the debate will most likely not get beyond ‘Trump is a denier, the science is real, and I support the targets set by the Paris accord.’”

Undoubtedly, Perez is in a tough spot. At the helm since February 2017, the DNC chair has worked to restore transparency and impartiality to the primary process in the wake of the 2016 election, when the DNC was accused of preferential treatment of presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. As counterintuitive as it may sound, forbidding primary candidates from participating in unsanctioned debates was part of that effort, by ensuring that candidates don’t have to constantly take part in single-issue debates hosted by interested constituencies or risk looking like they don’t care about that given issue.

But that’s not how it comes off now.

“They're literally going out of their way to say you can't even have a debate about climate change, period,” says Jamie Margolin, cofounder of Zero Hour. “No one can organize it. What kind of BS is that?” She and other youth activists feel alienated and suspicious. “There's a huge misconception that simply being a Democrat means that you're automatically a climate champion.” The DNC is afraid to have a debate about climate change, she thinks, because it would expose “a lot of the climate denying and delaying that’s been happening in the Democratic Party.”

Whatever Perez’s intentions, it’s frustrating to see the DNC back itself into a corner on a topic that should play to the party’s advantage. Concern about climate change has never been higher. A CNN poll published at the end of April found that 82 percent of Democrats listed climate change as a “top priority.” And, according to a Gallup poll last March, “Most Americans report worrying ‘a great deal’ or a ‘fair amount’ about global warming.” 

Democrats should be talking about climate change every chance they get in order to hammer home just how out of step President Trump—who denies climate change and whose policies continue to enrich the fossil fuel industry—is with most Americans. “This is an opportunity the DNC should seize to showcase the clear contrast between Democratic candidates, who are rolling out strong, bold plans, and Donald Trump, whose only answer to this crisis is denial,” the Sierra Club’s executive director Michael Brune says.

So far, pressure for the DNC to change course is only mounting. 

Groups like the Sierra Club, 350.org, and Greenpeace have all launched petitions demanding that the DNC dedicate a debate to the climate crisis, and on June 12, protestors delivered more than 200,000 signatures to DNC headquarters.

The executive committee of the Democratic Party in Miami-Dade County, where the first debates will be held on June 26 and 27, voted unanimously in favor of a debate on climate change, and Washington State Democratic Party chairwoman Tina Podlodowski announced a resolution pushing the committee to host a debate. That resolution further states that Democratic candidates should be free to participate “in any and all forums or debates” about climate change, even if sponsored by other groups. The resolution currently has more than 50 signatories from state party chairs and other DNC members.

Christine Pelosi, one of the DNC members representing the California Democratic Party and the daughter of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, is co-sponsoring the resolution. “I respect Tom Perez. He wants the process to be fair, but it also has to be responsive,” says Pelosi, who has long sought to elevate the issue of climate change within the Democratic Party. She believes the DNC will come around to finding a creative way to let candidates fully debate the climate crisis without having to punish anyone. “Campaigns are about momentum, about whoever has the energy, and right now, the energy is with the people who want a climate debate.”