Why the Republicans Will Effectively Address the Climate Crisis
A counter-intuitive argument
I recognize that the title of this article seems unlikely. After all, as I mentioned in my previous article, the United States is the leading country for climate deniers, largely as a result of an organized, well-funded campaign sponsored primarily by “the fossil fuels lobby, the Koch brothers, industry advocates and conservative think tanks, often in the United States.”
Our current President, who as recently as 2009, was part of a business coalition urging President Obama to take urgent climate action, went on in 2012 to say that “climate change was a hoax invented by the Chinese to make US manufacturing less competitive” and has taken numerous actions to undo the efforts of his predecessor to address the climate crisis, most notably by committing to withdraw the United States from the Paris Agreement and by packing his cabinet with coal and oil barons.
So please allow me to explain why I propose that it will be Republicans who will effectively address the climate crisis within the United States.
Currently, almost every Democrat running for President has committed to some kind of major effort to address the climate crisis. At this moment in time, it seems highly likely that Donald Trump with be the Republican candidate against a Democrat who is proposing either a form of the Green New Deal, or something close to it. At this time, while polls show leading Democratic candidates with a moderate lead against Donald Trump, it is too early to safely predict the outcome of the next election.
Still, it is safe to assume that either the Democrats will win the upcoming election, or that Trump will win this election and the Democrats will win in 2024. Since the end of World War II, only once has a single party held onto the Presidency for twelve years (Reagan/Bush from 1981–1993).
When that Democrat becomes President, they will most likely attempt to pass either a Green New Deal or some variation on that theme. And in all likelihood, they will fail.
At this point, a majority of Americans believe that climate change is real and that it should be addressed. A recent poll showed that 38% of Americans describe climate change as “a crisis,” an equal 38% describe it as “a major problem but not a crisis,” 15% as “a minor problem,” and only 8% as “not a problem at all.” But despite these encouraging numbers only a quarter of those polled will be willing to pay a $10 monthly tax on their electricity bills to help combat climate change.
And while most American citizens recognize the climate crisis as a problem, very few Republicans in congress will be willing to vote to support a Democratic bill to deal with it. In fact, we can safely assume that the Republicans will do everything they can to block such a bill. And even if Democrats take not only the Presidency, but gain majorities in both houses of Congress, unless the Senate eliminates the filibuster, it is very likely that the Republicans could prevent such a bill from passing.
This is especially true since the Green New Deal proposal does not just address the climate crisis, but also includes a laundry list of Democratic goals, such as job guarantees for every American, “strengthening and protecting the right of all workers to organize, unionize, and collectively bargain” and “to promote justice and equity by stopping current, preventing future, and repairing historic oppression of indigenous peoples, communities of color, migrant communities, deindustrialized communities, depopulated rural communities, the poor, low-income workers, women, the elderly, the unhoused, people with disabilities, and youth.” No matter how much these may seem to liberals like laudable goals, even Republicans who support taking action against the climate crisis are highly unlikely to back this approach towards doing so.
So what can break this deadlock? Looking back over the past half century of American history, we can see that major, innovating changes were often made when they were proposed by a President of the opposite party to the one that traditionally supported those changes. Let’s note a few examples.
Republican Richard Nixon presided over the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency and passage of major environmental laws like the Clean Water Act. He also opened relations with China. Bill Clinton promised to “end welfare as we know it” and replaced Aid to Families with Dependent Children with Temporary Aid to Needy Families, which led to cutting the number of Americans receiving cash assistance from the government by over two-thirds. Barack Obama passed the Affordable Care Act, which included a number of Republican ideas, such as the mandate Mitt Romney had enacted as governor of Massachusetts and many elements of Republican Sen. John Chafee’s Health Equity and Access Reform Today bill. And of course, even though the Republican party has for a long time been the party supporting the idea of free trade, President Trump has implemented major tariffs and mirrored the positions of Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton by rejecting the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
Once someone is sworn in as President, they have considerably more freedom to make policy changes that make sense to them than other politicians do. As President, they can set the agenda for their party. As we have seen with President Trump, the rest of the party tends to follow along, even if that agenda is in opposition to the party’s previous positions or stated values.
And clearly, if a President does choose to support a position that has been held by the opposing party, they can count on strong support for that position from both sides of the aisle. That is why it is much easier for a President to pass a proposal that resonates with the opposition party than a proposal from that President’s own party. This is even more true today than it was decades ago, when members of congress felt freer to vote their conscience rather than towing their party’s line.
But this brings us to the next question: assuming I am correct that the next Democratic President will be unable to pass major climate legislation, why is the next Republican President likely to support major policy changes to deal with the climate crisis?
Depending on which of the scenarios above plays out, we are likely to have the next Republican President after Trump five to thirteen years from now. There is a strong basis for believing that a plurality of Republicans will have shifted to being very concerned about the climate crisis by that time.
We have seen similar rapid shifts in public opinion several times in recent decades. The most obvious example is that of American opinion about homosexuality. In 1988, only 11% of Americans supported same-sex marriage, while twelve years later, in 2010, it had 46% support. Like climate change, this was a topic with a huge generational difference. A 2010 survey found that only 27% of Americans over 70 supported same-sex marriage, while it was supported by 64% of those under 30.
Legislation, actions by Congress and the President, and court decisions have closely followed public opinion. As recently as September 1996, President Bill Clinton signed the so-called Defense of Marriage Act, which defined marriage for federal purposes as being between one man and one woman, and allowed states to refuse to recognize same-sex marriages granted under the laws of other states. This law was ruled unconstitutional by Supreme Court rulings in 2013, and in 2015, the Court ruled that same-sex marriage was a fundamental right protected both by the Due Process Clause and the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution. Homosexuals were excluded from military service until 1993, when Congress passed the “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. This policy in turn was overturned by the courts and then repealed by the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Repeal Act of 2010, which ended restrictions on service by gay, lesbian, and bisexual personnel.
I am convinced we will have a similar experience with the climate crisis. By the time this next Republican President is elected, several things will have happened. First, disasters caused by climate change will not only have continued, but intensified. We all will be seeing worse hurricanes, flooding, wildfires, heat waves, glacier melting, and other climate-related disasters. Along with this, popular recognition of the reality and crisis nature of climate change will have become much more widespread among the American people. A recent Gallup poll found that 69% of Democrats worry about climate change “a great deal,” while only 12% of Republicans do so. But the total number of Americans in that category has nearly doubled since 2012. Four years ago, climate change was not even a topic of debate in the presidential debates, while now, it has been a significant focus for all of the Democratic candidates. This concern will spread, leading to more Republicans being concerned. Also, during those years, many young people (who are much more aware of and concerned about the climate crisis) will become of voting age, while some of today’s oldest voters, those most likely to oppose action, will have become incapacitated or died.
We are already seeing many companies wanting to mitigate the challenges of the climate crisis. The military has for years warned that global warming is one of the greatest risks they face. The most recent U.S. Army report warns of the collapse of the American power grid within the next 20 years and the danger of disease epidemics. This major report, delivered under President Donald Trump, says the military itself could effectively collapse in this timeframe because of major global instability and catastrophes within the U.S. And while President Trump will doubtless not take action on this, our next Republican President, confronted with a history of increasingly visible disasters, a rapidly growing public demand for action, and intensifying warnings from business and the military, will have no choice but to act.
At that point, irrespective of the makeup of Congress, both parties will pile on to support the President, and the United States can begin to take on the role it should be holding now, as the physical, economic, and moral leader of the effort to reach net zero or below.
Now I know that some of you may be saying, “That’s all well and good, but we don’t have thirteen years to get started. The 2018 IPCC Report says that CO2 emissions will need to start dropping well before 2030 and be on a path to fall by about 45% by the year 2030 in order to keep global temperatures from rising by more than 1.5° C.”
Please understand — I am in violent agreement with you. We should be making heroic efforts now. But that delay by our federal government isn’t quite as bad as it seems. First of all, although the U.S. is the second-largest country in greenhouse gas emissions, it doesn’t all depend on us. In September’s one-day UN Climate Summit, Secretary-General Guterres announced that 77 countries, ten regions and over 100 cities have committed to net zero carbon emissions by 2050. Prime Minister Modi of India announced shifts in national energy policy worth over $50 billion, including increases in renewable energy capacity. Wang Yi of China pointed out that since 2005, China’s CO2 emissions intensity has dropped by 45% and the country has contributed a quarter of newly afforested land globally. And second, here in the United States, even though our federal government is moving backwards, many cities and states are taking action. Over 100 U.S. cities have committed to 100% clean, renewable energy for all. The U.S. Climate Alliance, a group of 25 states committed to meet the Paris Agreement goals, represents more than half of the U.S. population and nearly 60% of U.S. GDP.
We will not stand still over the next dozen years. As the effects of the climate catastrophe become more apparent, and as public attitudes shift, even those cities and states that currently are turning their backs on the problem will join forces. As states moving forward on climate show the economic benefits of doing so, others will realize that it is to their benefit to participate. Thus, by the time the federal government belated joins forces with the cities and states of America, we will have a rich history of experience as to what works and an unstoppable momentum to push towards net zero.
