Echoes Of Empty Greenwashing Attempts Past In GQP's Latest "Rebranding" On Global Warming
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So many conservative policy strategists and economists favor carbon taxes. But watch what happens when sensible administrations implement this conservative Pigovian tax: in Australia, center-left Labor brought a carbon tax in. The right-wing Liberals — with the support of the Oz version of the Heritage Foundation and coal baron money — derided it utterly, fought an election on it, and when they won, canceled it. In Canada, the centrist Liberals brought in a revenue-neutral carbon fee and dividend to tax payers. The increasingly right-wing Conservatives derided it, fought two elections against it, thankfully losing both, and in a recent policy convention, refused to include climate change and action in their policies.
It’s like the Affordable Care Act, a Republican-created and tested policy that the conservative Obama Administration brought in. The Republicans immediately derided it as ObamaCare and fought tooth and nail against it for years. Consistency and so-called conservative parties like the Republicans don’t go hand in hand anymore. So the new Republican-only Conservative Climate Caucus exists in a context. It doesn’t have big names associated with it. It’s inherently partisan. It’s entered a place where two pre-existing, well structured, well thought-through actually conservative caucuses and political action groups with senior Republican engagement already exist. And it doesn’t have a coherent policy it stands behind.
But it does have a set of ‘beliefs’, and they’ve already tipped their hand about what they are really all about. Let’s look at what they believe, point by point. “The climate is changing, and decades of a global industrial era that has brought prosperity to the world has also contributed to that change.”
“Contributed to.” Right. The science is clear that we would be experiencing very slow cooling in a stable climate, but instead are seeing radically rapid heating, over 100 times faster than the heating which melted the continental glaciers 20-25 thousand years ago.
So yes, this is a belief. It’s not the reality. But that’s also not a policy indicator, so we can somewhat ignore it. “Private sector innovation, American resources, and R&D investment have resulted in lower emissions and affordable energy, placing the United States as the global leader in reducing emissions.”
“Global leader.” Right. Germany is off 40% in GHG emissions since 1990. US emissions are about the same as they were in 1990, after having risen through 2010 or so. You have to cherrypick your timeframes to pretend the US is a global leader in emissions reduction when its per capita emissions are still among the highest in the world and its historical emissions are a full 25% of the global historical total.
This is a point of faith on the right. They really seem to believe this is true. So yes, more unsupported belief, not reality. And also not policy, although it’s a pointer to policy.
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https://cleantechnica.com/2021/07/13/new-republican-only-conservative-climate-caucus-light-on-science-heavily-pro-fossil-fuels/