Climate and Elected Officials
By Aronya Waller
March 6th, 2023
“We come from different political parties and represent different parts of the country, but we recognize the importance of American leadership in addressing our changing climate. Republicans and Democrats have to work together, compromise, and find common ground.”
Climate change has been a political dividing point, and sometimes a bipartisan unifier, for generations. We have climate activists and climate deniers in our Congress. We recently witnessed the fight on the Hill for the ultimate passage of the Inflation Reduction Act. Its name does not imply it, but there were several aspects of climate change addressed within that act. There have been elected officials fighting for decades for climate change, but in recent years, political parties have taken different approaches to this issue. The Republican Party seems to be more interested in climate adaptation, which focuses on reducing our vulnerability to the impact of climate change. Whereas, the Democratic Party appears to be more focused on climate mitigation, which addresses the cause of climate change.
Climate change has been a political issue since the 1970s, and Republican President Richard Nixon established the Environmental Protection Agency in 1970. During that time, it seemed like the right-wing party was warning the country of the effects of climate change. Yet, the tide started to change in the late 1990s. In 2019, The Brookings Institution published an article about the politics of climate change. There were nearly an equal number of Democrats and Republicans who said that the effects of climate change had already begun in 1997. Ten years later, 76% of Democrats believed that the effects had already begun, and only 42% of Republicans believed it. That gap had decreased by 34%.
This gap is slowly closing, but it needs to happen at a much quicker rate. In the 116th Congress, there were 150 members and 139 members in the 117th Congress. There are fewer Congressional Republican deniers. They agree with the scientific evidence that fossil fuel emissions are raising the Earth’s temperature, but they think that abandoning oil, gas, and coal will harm our economy. According to the Center for American Progress, there were still 139 elected officials in the 117th Congress, including 109 representatives and 30 senators, who refused to acknowledge the scientific evidence of human-caused climate change. These same 139 climate-denying members have received more than $61 million in lifetime contributions from the coal, oil, and gas industries. These climate deniers comprised 52 percent of House Republicans, 60 percent of Senate Republicans, and more than one-quarter of the total number of elected officials in Congress.
While there are climate deniers, there are also climate activists entering Congress. These younger Congressional representatives are known as climate hawks. They are determined to push climate change bills through Congress. They are also committed to supporting environmentalists, agricultural workers, Indigenous people, labor groups, and low-income communities. Climate change is no longer a threat for generations from now. It is not a futuristic idea. Climate change is here. Climate change is only increasing the racial and economic inequalities within our communities.
Many of us have experienced the effects of climate change—hurricanes, floods, pollution, and lack of clean water to name a few. It is up to us to vote for people who will fulfill their promises to address climate change and contact our Congressional representatives to help save our planet. It’s time for the United States to get on board with what the rest of the world already knows. Our planet is under siege. During the United Nations Climate Change Conference COP27, countries representing more than half of the global GDP created a 12-month action plan to help make clean technologies cheaper and more accessible everywhere—focusing on topics such as burning fossil fuels, infrastructure, and agriculture.
In this article, neither Veggie Mijas nor I am advocating for any elected official. While we may not fully or always agree with their policies and votes, the people and groups highlighted below at least have some foresight to move climate change practices forward.
Sources
Bipartisan Senate Climate Solutions Caucus. https://www.coons.senate.gov/climate-solutions-caucus/
Burga, Solcyre. What You Need to Know About the Inflation Reduction Act.TIME. August 8, 2022. https://time.com/6204537/inflation-reduction-act-whats-in-it/
Caldwell, Leigh Ann Caldwell & Joselow, Maxine. ‘The Three Climateers’: Meet the new generation of Senate climate hawks. The Washington Post. August 18, 2022. https://www.schatz.senate.gov/news/in-the-news/the-three-climateers-meet-the-new-generation-of-senate-climate-hawks#
Center for American Progress. Climate Deniers in the 117th Congress. March 30, 2021. https://www.americanprogress.org/article/climate-deniers-117th-congress/
Citizens' Climate Lobby. Climate Solutions Caucus. https://citizensclimatelobby.org/climate-solutions-caucus/
Climate Change. Congressional Office of Sean Casten. https://casten.house.gov/issues/climate-change
Easley, Jonathan. Sanders: Climate change still greatest threat to national security. The Hill. November 14, 2015. https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/260184-sanders-climate-change-still-greatest-threat-to-national-security/
Joselow, Maxine. This Republican wants to outcompete China on climate change. The Washington Post. October 17, 2022. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/17/this-republican-wants-outcompete-china-climate-change/
Kamarck, Elaine. The Brookings Institution. The challenging politics of climate change. September 23, 2019. https://www.brookings.edu/research/the-challenging-politics-of-climate-change/
Ogasa, Nikk. 2022’s biggest climate change bill pushes clean energy. Science News. December 14, 2022. https://www.sciencenews.org/article/2022-climate-change-bill-legislation-clean-energy
United Nation Framework Convention On Climate Change. The Breakthrough Agenda: a master plan to accelerate decarbonization of five major sectors. November 11, 2022. https://climatechampions.unfccc.int/breakthrough-agenda/
Waldman, Scott. This House Republican may hold the keys to climate policy. E&E News. October 5, 2022. https://www.eenews.net/articles/this-house-republican-may-hold-the-keys-to-climate-policy/