Rating the GOP candidates on the climate debate

During Wednesday night’s Republican debate, presidential hopefuls took the stage in Wisconsin and discussed a myriad of topics ranging from Trump’s complicity in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol (and democracy) to a national abortion ban to immigration. 

They had a real chance to show they’ve come a long way on climate change, especially coming one month after the hottest July on record, amid what is likely to be the first annual Hot Planet Summer.

Overall, they all failed the test. 

The topic of climate change, surely the greatest existential crisis of a generation—or more at the rate we’re working on solving it—didn’t even break the top five in terms of time spent on the issues.  

But at least it came up.

Grading on a curve, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley probably did the best, earning a gentlewoman’s C for her response to the climate question. “Yes, it is [real],” she contended. 

“But if you want to go and really change the environment, then we need to start telling China and India that they have to lower their emissions.” She’s right, but she failed to connect the dots to policies the U.S. could enact that would force China, India and Russia’s hands, policies like a carbon border adjustment which would require heavy-polluting countries to pay at the border for us to import their manufactured products, which aren’t produced as cleanly as the U.S. equivalents with much lower carbon intensities. 

While she gets partial credit for her response, the Fox News commentators get an F for falling into the trap that so much of the media is stuck in: asking if humans had contributed to climate change. (Spoiler alert: yes, we have.)

“Gravity doesn’t care whether you believe in it or not,” climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe often says, “but if you step off a cliff, you’re going to go down.”

And down they went.

One guy that definitely does not believe and thus would walk this country—and the world—off that proverbial cliff is Vivek Ramaswamy, who called for more drilling, more fracking, more burning of coal as he leaned in on former President Donald Trump’s position to assert that the “climate change agenda is a hoax” and that “the reality is more people are dying of bad climate change policies than they are of actual climate change.”

Ramaswamy doesn’t even deserve an F; he gets a zero for obviously skipping class, perhaps holed up in an air-conditioned bunker with no credible news and only red meat talking points drafted by the Koch Brothers at his disposal. But former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie earned his F for using his rebuttal time to make a ChatGPT quip and Barack Obama dig instead of invoking his gubernatorial experience during Superstorm Sandy, the hurricane which devastated the New Jersey coast and flooded numerous communities in 2012.

When governing the purple-tinted blue state, Christie used to be a guy on the side of solving climate change. Until he set his sights on higher office. Now anything goes.

Scoring solid D’s for their climate responses are Ron DeSantis—the governor of Florida, the state most firmly on the front lines of climate change, a state with such high risk that home insurers are pulling out and scientists are pulling coral reefs out of the water in an attempt to save them in a laboratory—and South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, who rattled off a talking point about bringing American jobs back from China. (See also: Nikki Haley feedback)

Overall, the eight candidates on the stage missed an opportunity to lead the GOP into the 21st century on climate change. (Yes, I know, we are two-plus decades into the century.) But this crew has regressed from the positions of former GOP presidential candidates. Take for example, George W. Bush who in his 2000 campaign committed to reduce CO2. (Under pressure from Vice President Dick Cheney and Senate Republicans he eventually reneged on that promise.) Arizona Sen. John McCain is perhaps the Republican most credited with trying to bring the GOP along on climate change. In the 2008 race, he and Obama softly debated climate in their face-to-face match up. (McCain was much more passionate about the issue than his opponent.)

I will give that it might be hard for Republicans to pivot and be for something they once vehemently denied, though 30 years ago, this was still a bipartisan issue with the divide falling more by region than party. 

Climate change should no longer be an issue the candidates run from. Maui was just on fire. Florida oceans are hot tubs. Smoke from Canadian wildfires were choking the Midwest and Mid Atlantic earlier this summer. While some courageous policy makers are bullish on the issue—like Utah Rep. John Curtis, founder of the House Conservative Climate Caucus, who is bringing his peers to the table so they aren’t on the menu—a plethora of GOP-climate led solutions are not exactly being offered up.  

And that’s a real shame because a suite of market-based policies designed to cut emissions would not only work, but they would set their champions apart as solvers of climate change. Now that would be a record to run on.

Mary Anna Mancuso is a political strategist based in South Florida and a spokesperson for RepublicEn.org, a growing group of conservatives who care about climate change.