Moderate GOP voices on climate are being overrun by MAGA | Opinion
Editor’s note: The writer is an Environmental Sciences professor who has worked on climate change and air pollution for 30 years.
Here are words that do not appear in the 2024 Republican Party platform: climate, warming, heat, greenhouse, carbon, CO2, IPCC, Paris, forest, nature, species, pollution, chemical, planet, sea, ocean, air, water, soil and food.
“Environment” appears once as “learning environments,” “clean” once, “land” only to open federal ones, and “fire” only as terminating employment. “Earth” appears only as “most productive workers on Earth” and “near Earth orbit.” But “space,” “moon” and “Mars?” They’re in.
Are we to assume that the GOP has no plan on climate change or the environment? That would be foolish. Though it does not address climate change directly, the Republican platform emphasizes increasing U.S. energy production — “DRILL, BABY, DRILL” appears in capital letters — although energy production was not slowed under Joe Biden.
While president, Donald Trump withdrew from the Paris Agreement to the scorn of much of the rest of the world. Under President Joe Biden the U.S. rejoined it.
Project 2025, a possible blueprint for a second Trump term, emphasizes withdrawing from Paris again and strikes climate initiatives from agencies like the EPA and Energy. On the campaign trail Trump has said he would roll back incentives for clean energy infrastructure, including for renewable energy and electric vehicles.
In the Republican Party of today, climate change, and environmental issues generally, take a back seat. This is quite a change from the GOP of years past.
George H. W. Bush didn’t do as much on climate change as environmentalists would have liked, but he did not deny the issue existed or downplay it. He presented his reasons for his positions. In the 2012 election, John McCain had nearly the same stance on climate change that Barack Obama did — with both candidates featuring ads with windmills and solar panels, envisioning a clean energy economy.
Some conservatives, especially young conservatives, understand the threat of climate change and the importance of environmental issues, but their more moderate voices seem to have been overrun by MAGA voices.
Many people, including me, think that climate change is among the greatest threats we face in the 21st Century. We are seeing its consequences now in extreme heat, droughts, fires and severe storms, and it will continue to worsen as it affects our economy, health, security and the world around us. We have technologies now that can reduce emissions at a lower cost than we previously thought possible as we transition to cleaner future.
The current decade is critical for action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to keep global temperature change from exceeding 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), beyond which impacts escalate. And as the world’s largest economy and second-largest emitter, the United States’ position on climate change has outsized influence on the willingness of other countries to take action.
Candidates have a responsibility to tell us their positions and plans on climate change. We should demand that candidates face critical issues like climate change squarely. Ignoring climate change will not make it go away.
Jason West is an Environmental Sciences and Engineering professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The views expressed are his own.
