The Green Gap: Republican Candidates and Climate Change

Nov. 27, 2007 — -- At the end of last week, the presidential campaign of Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., began running an unusual radio spot in New Hampshire.

In it, McCain says: "I think the time is past when we argue about whether climate change is real or not. We have an obligation to future generations to take action and fix it."

McCain framed the issue in terms of reducing dependence on foreign oil and national security, positions unlikely to offend conservative voters. But what was unusual was that he was raising it at all.

The other top GOP contenders, former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson, rarely talk about global warming. When they do, it is usually in response to a question at one of their campaign events.

"Most of the Republican candidates are talking about core Republican issues," says political analyst Stuart Rothenberg. "They talk taxes. They talk about the size of government. They talk about national security. Those issues are what Republicans are comfortable talking about, and that's what most Republican voters want to hear. McCain is the exception.

"Politicians are very cautious and they prefer to talk about things they're comfortable talking about, and that they know voters want to hear. Republican [candidates] think they can talk about taxes with certainty and size of government. But when they get to the environment, they are afraid that bringing up the subject can alienate some conservatives."

When the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued a report on Nov. 18 containing an almost apocalyptic vision of what is likely to ensue unless the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions begins as soon as five years from now, the GOP presidential candidates were quiet.

Instead, the Democrats appear to have co-opted the issue of climate change, in no small part due to Al Gore's association with the issue through his documentary "An Inconvenient Truth," which won an Oscar this year, and the Bush administration's early position as a global warming skeptic. Also, the Democratic presidential candidates regularly, if often, generally talk about the issue.

The risk for the Republicans is that moderate Republican voters and independents who are concerned about global warming could come to see it as "a Democratic issue" -- one on which the Democratic candidates are seen as more forceful and concerned -- come November 2008. There could develop what Time magazine's Washington political editor Ana Marie Cox called "the green gap" between the two parties.

At a recent campaign stop in Rindge, N.H., McCain acknowledged that there is a green gap between Democrats and Republicans.

"I'm very disappointed in the Bush administration over many years [for] their failure to give recognition to the size of this challenge and take action to combat it," he said. "And that has helped the Democrats. And frankly, that has not been helpful for us with younger voters who are deeply concerned about this issue."

According to an analysis in October by the Council on Foreign Relations of the Democratic and Republican candidates' positions on climate change, McCain "has been one of the most outspoken members of Congress on the issue." He favors caps on greenhouse gas emissions, a "cap and trade" policy as a market-based way to spur industries to take action, and higher fuel standards for vehicles.

According to the Council on Foreign Relations, citing a 2004 Boston Globe article, "Until recently, Romney largely avoided stating his opinion as to whether or not climate change exists or is caused by humans." He does now acknowledge that mankind has contributed to global warming. When asked about it at his "Ask Mitt Anything" events, he often says he is in favor of reducing United States dependence on foreign oil by developing alternative cleaner fuels, and the use of nuclear power.

At a town hall meeting in New Hampshire in October, Giuliani said: "Yes, global warming is happening. Yes, human beings are contributing to it. No, it is not an hysterical emergency that has to be dealt with, you know, as a pone- or two-year emergency or the world is going to end. It should be dealt with as a long-term emergency in a sensible, mature sound way in which we allow our economy to grow."

Giuliani criticized the Gore documentary for "frightening" people.

Last spring, Thompson seemed to mock the issue, writing in the National Review Online that warming on other planets led some to "wonder if Mars and Jupiter, nonsignatories to the Kyoto treaty, are actually inhabited by alien SUV-driving industrialists who run their air conditioning at 60 degrees and refuse to recycle." More recently, as a presidential candidate, he has said global warming is real.

Huckabee calls climate change "a spiritual issue." The Council on Foreign Relations analysis said: "In another interview, [he[ got more specific, saying, 'We ought to be moving rapidly toward energy resources that don't have a greenhouse gas effect."

But, unless questioned about it, the Republican candidates for president -- with the exception of McCain -- shy away from the issue even as scientists issue increasingly alarming reports of the potentially catastrophic consequences of a warming planet.

ABC News' Matt Stuart, Kevin Chupka, Jan Simmonds and Bret Hovell contributed to this report.