How to make climate change a bipartisan priority

As a divided Congress gets underway, the environmental movement must confront a fundamental, and perhaps uncomfortable, reality: The U.S. will not be able to successfully address climate change without bipartisanship.

This is not to discount last year’s passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, which Democrats squeezed through Congress without any GOP votes. However, there is still much work to do on climate and likely a decade’s wait, or longer, until Democrats again secure unified control of government. In the last half century, neither party has recaptured full control of Washington, after losing it, in fewer than 10 years. In the post-World War II period, the average time it has taken is 14 years. At this pace, it will be 2033, 2035, or 2037 before Democrats again hold the House, Senate and White House.

We simply cannot wait that long to pass additional climate legislation. The stakes are too high and the time is too short, especially in light of increasingly frequent and visible climate impacts. So relying exclusively on Democrats for continued climate progress would be a strategic blunder. Bipartisanship is the only assured path to decarbonizing at scale and speed.

Despite this reality, the climate movement has done far too little to lay the groundwork for bipartisan action. For years, philanthropists have poured money into progressive climate groups, while largely overlooking opportunities to engage right-of-centre communities on this topic. The data bear this out. According to an analysis by North-eastern University, less than 2 per cent of climate philanthropy has gone to engaging conservatives on climate change. On a very practical level, this imbalance misses an opportunity to build a broader tent and delays the elevation of climate as a bipartisan priority.

As former GOP congressmen eager to see further movement on climate, we know first-hand how difficult it can be to mobilize Republicans on this issue. Some of the blame lies within our own party, which has been too sceptical on climate action for too long. But without real engagement from the environmental movement, it becomes easy for our Republican colleagues to dismiss the issue as a liberal concern rather than a challenge confronting us all.

In its work on climate change, the Democratic Party is guided by a formidable civil society apparatus — including think tanks, grassroots organizations and more — that pushes, pulls and applauds Democrats as they act on this issue. There is little equivalent on the right. The small assemblage of organizations that make up the “eco-right,” while growing, receive only a fraction of the funding that left-of-centre groups do. If environmental leaders are genuinely committed to emboldening bipartisan action in support of increasingly ambitious policy, this must change. Far more resources need to be invested in building the kind of infrastructure that can rally conservatives to climate action.

Already, advocacy by the eco-right has demonstrated its ability to move the political needle. Just in the last few years, dozens of Republicans have joined the bipartisan Climate Solutions Caucuses in both chambers of Congress; the newly formed Conservative Climate Caucus in the House now includes a third of the GOP conference.

Politico