The 2020 Election & Climate Change: Guest MINDSETTER™ Sasse

The 2020 Election & Climate Change: Guest MINDSETTER™ Sasse

Republicans and Democrats use to fashion bipartisan solutions to the nation’s environmental problems. They passed legislation protecting the earth’s ozone shield by outlawing the use of CFCs and other chemicals. Laws were enacted to clean up America’s waterways and contaminated water supplies. Amendments to the Clean Air Act led to more stringent emissions controls.

In 2020 the United States’ primary environmental challenge is climate change. Hotter temperatures, more frequent natural disasters and rising sea levels are examples of the existential risks being imposed by climate change.

Ninety-seven percent of the published research has found that climate change is real. While there may be different opinions about specific climate change solutions and their costs and benefits, a Monmouth University poll found that 80 percent of Americans agreed that climate change is undeniable and is causing extreme weather.

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Unfortunately, due to hyper partisanship the President and Congress have been side-tracked in dealing with the challenges of climate change.

Today too many Republicans are either denying or ignoring the perils of climate change. In 2014 Donald Trump tweeted, “Global Warming Is an Expensive Hoax”. Perhaps nothing is more telling about the right’s attitude toward climate change than President Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris Climate Accord.

Republicans did not always hold these positions. In 1970 President Richard Nixon established the Environmental Protection Agency. In 2008 the Republican presidential candidate Senator John McCain proposed a national cap and trade program to limit carbon emissions.

Conversely, numerous present-day Democrats believe radically reordering the entire economy is necessary to address climate change. Their utopian plan--The Green New Deal-- envisions Washington controlling key sectors of the nation’s economy and social institutions. In the guise of protecting the environment they aim to guarantee employment, quality housing and health care at costs taxpayers cannot afford.

Fossil fuels are responsible for most of the energy used.  Thus, a climate change agenda will require retooling the energy system. This may take decades and will transcend election cycles. Bipartisanship, therefore, is needed to sustain the multiyear climate change program.

I am active in a group known as No Labels. It is a nonpartisan organization that fights hyper partisanship by proposing bipartisan solutions to the nation’s problems. No Labels recently published the “Ultimate Guide to the 2020 Election”. The Ultimate Guide suggests ways the next President and Congress can bring the people together to deal with America’s ills.

It included two big proposals to break the climate change gridlock.

The first is to double down on federal R&D breakthrough energy technologies. The Pew Charitable Trust reported that energy initiatives have accounted for one percent of the Federal R&D budget since the 1990’s. Federal investments in advanced energy and battery storage, and climate mitigation and adaptation technologies could pay huge dividends. Experience demonstrates that government R&D can set the stage for the private sector to create and market new products.

The second recommendation is to put a tax on carbon and return the proceeds directly to the people.  A tax on carbon content can incentivize industries to find options to reduce carbon emissions. The downside is carbon taxes increase prices consumers pay for gasoline and electricity. However, a carbon tax can be a win for both the environment and taxpayers if the tax revenue it generates are paid back to the people and businesses.

The answer to the extremist’s positions of both the right and left is an equally strong force pushing for pragmatic affordable compromise in the war on climate change.

 

Gary Sasse is the Founding Director of the Hassenfeld Leadership Institute at Bryant University