Climate Change Fiasco in first GOP primary debate was a ‘disaster for the party’s brand’

Video above includes commentary on Abortion policy, the climate discussion begins at 3:40, and I hope that’s where the vid will start upon clicking.

Associated Press:

The eight Republican presidential candidates on the debate stage were asked to raise their hands if they believed human behavior is causing climate change.

Not a single hand went up. 

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis shut down the question and attacked the “corporate media.” Echoing the words of former President Donald Trump, Vivek Ramaswamy called climate change “a hoax” and a “wet blanket on our economy.” Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., insisted that more serious environmental threats are coming from China, India and Africa.

Just one Republican, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, said during Wednesday night’s debate in Milwaukee that climate change “is real.”

A day later, frustrated leaders in the GOP’s small but growing movement of environmental activists said their party must do better. In fact, some young conservatives confronted Ramaswamy at a gathering after the debate and told him his answer was particularly unhelpful. 

“We’re getting to a point where Republicans are losing winnable elections because they’re alienating people that care about climate change,” Christopher Barnard, the Republican president of the American Conservation Coalition, the largest conservative environmental group in the nation, said Thursday.

As the 2024 presidential contest begins in earnest, the Republican Party is struggling to reconcile rising concerns about climate change — especially young people — with the GOP’s older base, which largely rejects climate science as a liberal conspiracy theory. Scientists overwhelmingly agree that heat-trapping gases released from the combustion of fossil fuels are pushing up global temperatures, upending weather patterns and endangering animal species. 

Some Republican leaders have acknowledged they cannot ignore climate change altogether. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., has called for planting 1 trillion trees to help protect the environment. But the solutions long promoted by Democrats and environmental advocates — government action to force emissions reductions — remains a nonstarter with the GOP’s presidential candidates.