Climate Forums for Gubernatorial Candidates Just a Week Away

Most of the candidates for governor will appear together at back-to-back forums on climate change next week.

Maryland Matters is a co-sponsor of both events.

The forums will take place at the University of Maryland College Park on Tuesday evening and at Goucher College in Towson on Wednesday evening. Both forums will be live-streamed and recorded, but the public is welcome to attend the events in person. However, there are a limited number of seats available at both venues and the deadline for signing up to attend in person is Tuesday, March 1.

Click here to read more from our Climate Calling series.

The first climate forum is from 7-8:30 p.m. on Tuesday, March 8 at the Riggs Alumni Center at the University of Maryland at College Park. The second is a night later, Wednesday, March 9, from 7-8:30 p.m. at the Ungar Athenaeum at Goucher College.

All of the candidates for governor have been invited to both events and several have already confirmed that they plan to attend one or both.

Due to participate in both events: Democrats Jon Baron, Doug Gansler, Ashwani Jain, John King, Laura Neuman and Jerome Segal, Republican Robin Ficker and Libertarian David Lashar. Democrats Wes Moore and Tom Perez have committed to attending the Tuesday forum in College Park, and Democrat Peter Franchot will attend the Wednesday event at Goucher College.

Republicans Dan Cox and Kelly Schulz have declined invitations to participate. Democrat Rushern Baker has yet to respond.

Maryland Matters’ co-sponsors for both events are the Maryland League of Conservation Voters, the Sierra Club Maryland chapter, the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, Ed Hatcher and Angie Cannon. The College Park forum is also being sponsored by the Prince George’s County NAACP and the Environmental Justice Journalism Initiative. The Goucher event is being co-sponsored by the Baltimore County NAACP branch.

Maryland Matters Founding Editor Josh Kurtz will be a panelist at both events, asking the candidates questions.

For the College Park event, he will be joined as a questioner on the panel by Dr. Tonya Harrison-Edwards, legislative affairs chair for the NAACP Prince George’s County Branch, and Rona Kobell, an environmental journalist who is co-director of the Environmental Justice Journalism Initiative.

At Goucher, Kurtz will be joined on the panel by Staci Hartwell of the NAACP Maryland State Conference, Sheilah Kast, host of WYPR’s “On the Record,” and Stella Krajick, a Goucher College political science and environmental studies student.

All in-person attendees must show proof of vaccinations and wear N95 or KN95 masks when indoors on the two college campuses.

Click here if you are interested in learning more about these events or attending one of them in person. If you are interested in watching the College Park forum on Facebook Live, click here. If you are interested in watching the Goucher forum on Facebook Live, click here.

Maryland Matters’ participation in this event is part of the “Climate Calling” project we launched last year — and another sign of our commitment to illuminating major issues in Maryland and holding political leaders to account. As part of that project, we ran interviews last fall with the nine Democratic candidates for governor who were then in the race.

Keep reading Maryland Matters for last-minute details before the two forums take place next week.

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