GOP presidential candidates reject link between disasters, warming

In today’s edition, we’ll cover the failure of a heat safety standard in a Florida county, the results of environmental ballot referendums in Maine and Texas, and China’s plan for reducing methane emissions. But first:

Republican presidential candidates reject link between weather disasters and climate change

Of the five Republican presidential candidates who will take the debate stage in Miami tonight, three accept that climate change is real and caused by humans — a shift from past election cycles when GOP contenders largely dismissed the scientific consensus.

But even as heat waves, wildfires and floods become more frequent and severe, few of the candidates recognize the link between extreme weather disasters and rising global temperatures. And few support policies aimed at cutting America’s planet-warming emissions, including federal subsidies for clean energy and electric vehicles.

That’s all according to The Washington Post’s analysis of where the 2024 presidential candidates stand on key issues. The Post asked each of the candidates the same questions about abortion, climate, crime and guns, the economy, education, elections, foreign policy and immigration. If candidates didn’t respond, we consulted the public record to determine their positions as clearly as possible.

Below, we’ll dive into the climate positions of the five candidates who qualified for the debate in Miami, a coastal city that’s especially vulnerable to sea level rise. We’ll also scrutinize the stance of former president Donald Trump, the polling front-runner, who will once again skip the showdown in favor of a campaign rally in Hialeah, Fla.

‘Not living under a rock’

Three of the debate participants have acknowledged that climate change is real and caused by human activity, although they’ve stopped short of specifying that it’s not just any activity — it’s the burning of fossil fuels.

• Former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley said during the first GOP presidential primary debate: “Is climate change real? Yes, it is.” In a 2020 video released by her advocacy group Stand for America, Haley also declared that “man-made climate change is real, but liberal ideas would cost trillions and destroy our economy.” 
• Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina told the Post and Courier in 2017: “There is no doubt that man has had an impact on our environment. There is no doubt about that. I am not living under a rock.”
• Former New Jersey governor Chris Christie said in 2015: “I think global warming is real. I don’t think that’s deniable. And I do think human activity contributes to it.”

But the other two candidates have not explicitly accepted the facts on which the overwhelming majority of climate scientists agree.

• Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said in 2019: “To me, I’m not as concerned about what is the sole cause. If you have water in the streets, you have to find a way to combat that.”
• Tech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy declared during the first GOP debate that “the climate change agenda is a hoax.”

Weather woes

While some of the candidates recognize the basic scientific consensus, few have gone a step further by acknowledging the connection between individual weather disasters and global warming.

DeSantis, whose state was walloped by Hurricane Ian last fall, is a prime example. 

“People said when we had Ian, it was because of climate change — I’ve always rejected the politicization of the weather,” DeSantis said after announcing his campaign for president. (In fact, scientists say climate change has increased the intensity of hurricanes, in part because warmer air can hold more moisture, leading to increased rainfall in a storm.)

When asked in 2013 about Superstorm Sandy’s connection with climate change, Christie said the question was “a distraction” and that global warming was an “esoteric” theory.

Then there is Trump, who has repeatedly blamed forest mismanagement, rather than climate change, for more destructive and deadly wildfires. Scientists have said that no amount of forest management can stop wildfires in a warmer world.

Slamming EV subsidies

Regardless of their stance on the science, many of the candidates have blasted liberal policies intended to slow Earth’s rapid warming. They’ve reserved some of their strongest criticism for the electric vehicle tax credits in President Biden’s signature climate law, the Inflation Reduction Act.

• “These subsidies are not working,” Haley said during the first GOP debate. 
• Trump has vowed to undo Biden’s EV policies, saying in a July video: “Biden is spending billions and billions of taxpayer dollars subsidizing electric cars for rich people while normal Americans can’t afford to use one, nor do they even want to.”
• In his campaign’s economic plan, DeSantis says he will “reverse the federal government’s attempt to force people to buy electric vehicles. We will save the American automobile.”

Ramaswamy wrote in April on X, formerly known as Twitter, that the “climate cult” uses EV subsidies to make America more dependent on China.

Neither Ramaswamy nor his competitors have articulated an alternative vision for slashing climate pollution from the transportation sector, the nation’s biggest source of greenhouse gas emissions. 

That seems unlikely to change tonight.

In the states

Miami-Dade County shelves workplace heat rules

Miami-Dade County commissioners rejected a bill yesterday that would have created the first county-level workplace heat protections in the United States.

Labor groups and medical researchers had touted the proposal as a model that local governments around the country could follow to prevent heat-related injuries and deaths in the absence of federal regulations. But on Tuesday, commissioners raised concerns about the cost of enforcing the rules, the likelihood that Florida’s state legislature would immediately preempt the measure, and the financial impact the proposed fines would have on farms and construction companies. “This ordinance could potentially kill industry,” Commissioner Danielle Cohen Higgins said.

Last week, the bill’s co-sponsor, Kionne McGhee, vowed to do whatever it took to pass the bill. “There is no intent to defer this item any longer,” he told The Post. “If it means we have to sit in that chamber for 10 to 15 hours in a marathon, we’re going to go in there and get this right.”

But after hearing objections from six of the 10 commissioners present yesterday, McGhee voted to defer the item until March. “I know how to count,” he said. 

There’s no indication that any changes to the bill — which had already been watered down by industry lobbyists — can win over skeptical commissioners. “I don’t want to give false expectations to my colleagues that deferring this item and bringing it back … would be any different,” Commissioner Juan Carlos Bermudez said.

Many thanks to our colleague Nicolás Rivero for writing this item. Follow him on X here.

Mainers reject nonprofit utility, as Texans approve billions for gas plants

Maine voters yesterday rejected a ballot referendum that would have replaced the state’s investor-owned utilities with a new nonprofit power company, Patrick Whittle reports for the Associated Press.

Question 3 asked Mainers whether they wanted to dissolve Central Maine Power and Versant, which together meet more than 96 percent of the state’s electricity demand, and establish a new nonprofit utility called Pine Tree Power.

Meanwhile in Texas, the Associated Press projected that voters would approve a constitutional amendment that would provide billions of taxpayer dollars for the construction of natural-gas-fired power plants. As of this morning, 64.9 percent of Texans had voted in favor of Proposition 7, while 35.1 percent had voted against, with 95 percent of votes counted.

Agency alert

EPA launches program for lead pipe removal, replacement

The Environmental Protection Agency yesterday announced a program aimed at accelerating the removal and replacement of lead pipes across the country.

Under the Get the Lead Out Initiative, which is funded by the bipartisan infrastructure law of 2021, the EPA and the Labor Department will provide technical assistance to 200 disadvantaged communities working to identify and remove lead service lines. Long-term exposure to lead, a potent neurotoxin, can lead to lower IQ levels and behavioral problems in children. 

“An estimated 9.2 million pipes that provide drinking water to homes across the United States still contain lead, and they are most commonly found in older homes. This means they disproportionately impact families with the fewest resources to remove them,” Radhika Fox, the EPA’s assistant administrator for water, said during an event yesterday at the agency’s headquarters.

Still, eradicating lead from American life has proved difficult, despite the overwhelming body of science on its dangers. In Flint, Mich., some residents have found a lead pipe replacement program to be complicated and confusing.

International climate

China announces plan for curbing methane emissions

China yesterday released an action plan for reducing methane emissions, pledging more “forceful” measures to tackle the potent greenhouse gas before the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Dubai later this month, Reuters's David Stanway, Ethan Wang and Twinnie Siu report.

Beijing will “effectively improve” its monitoring of methane emissions through 2025 and will “significantly improve them” from 2026 to 2030, according to the strategy published by the Ministry of Ecology and Environment. China’s oil and gas industry will also “strive” to eliminate flaring of methane by 2030, the strategy says.

The plan was unveiled as U.S. climate envoy John F. Kerry wrapped up meetings with his Chinese counterpart Xie Zhenhua in California. Experts say cooperation on climate policy between the United States and China, the world’s two biggest emitters, will be crucial to progress in Dubai.

However, Paul Bledsoe, a lecturer at American University’s Center for Environmental Policy, criticized the strategy for not including specific emissions reduction targets.

“China has promised methane cuts since Glasgow, yet now offers only monitoring, despite massive methane leaks from its coal mines which are 20 percent of methane from all fossil fuel sources globally,” Bledsoe said in an email to The Climate 202, referring to the 2021 climate conference in Scotland. “Beijing’s climate backtracking should be a key focus at COP28.”

In the atmosphere

• Greenland’s ice shelves hold back sea level rise. There are just 5 left. — Chris Mooney for The Post
• After planet’s hottest October, U.S. temperatures are spiking in November — Matthew Cappucci for The Post
• Virginia declares state of emergency due to uncontained wildfires — Justin Wm. Moyer for The Post
• Top Texas energy regulator pans proposed science textbooks as 'woke environmental agenda’ — Edward McKinley for the San Antonio Express-News

Viral

Thanks for reading!