Conservative Climate Plans Are Neither Conservative Nor Climate Plans
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That leaves “objective” reporters in a difficult situation, though — a story without two sides. For those reporters, word of GOP climate policy comes as a great relief. They can leave the one-sided science story and return to ground they know and understand: two sides with dueling policies, economists, experts, and think-tank reports. In other words, he said, she said. The story is convenient for many denizens of the Beltway. There’s just one problem: It’s mostly horse shit.
The one thing it gets right is that Republicans are feeling pressure to change their public stance on climate change. They are groping about for rhetoric and policies that not only can be plausibly said to address climate change but also don’t offend any large bloc of the current conservative coalition, especially the financially supportive and fossil fuel blocs. But in reality, the overlap between those things is pretty slim. And whatever you might say about that overlap, it is neither conservative nor serious climate policy.
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It makes much more sense if viewed as an attempt to simply have something to say when pressed on the vague issue of “climate and environment.” It’s meant to provide the media and disengaged voters with an “other side” on climate policy, without endorsing anything that might upset the fossil fuel companies with which the party is aligned. Notably, the plan includes nothing about solar and wind power, which replace coal and natural gas; nothing about electric vehicles, which replace gasoline vehicles; nothing about efficient buildings or heat pumps, which replace natural gas furnaces; nothing about hydrogen, which can help replace fossil fuels in industrial processes.
What could justify these strange priorities? This is the argument Rep. Garret Graves, a Louisiana Republican who is leading GOP climate efforts, uses: “Fossil fuels aren’t the enemy. It’s emissions. So let’s devise strategies that are based on emissions strategies, not based on eliminating fossil fuels.” This makes no sense if interpreted literally. The plan Graves was talking about carefully avoids endorsing policies that directly go after emissions, such as a carbon tax or pollution regulations. It avoids setting any particular targets for emission reductions. It avoids mention of most of the technologies and policies with the most potential to reduce emissions, like renewable energy and performance standards. What Graves expressed is not determination to target emissions in general. Rather, he is committed to supporting ways for fossil fuel companies, his party’s most stalwart donors, to clean up their own emissions.
Climate policy, he’s trying to say, need not involve shutting down, replacing, or even particularly inconveniencing fossil fuels. That is the core GOP climate message, the reason the party is getting off the sidelines and into the game. It’s there to protect fossil fuels from climate policy.
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https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2020/2/5/21121935/climate-change-republicans-conservatives
