The Truth About Climate Policy

On June 1, 2017, former President Donald Trump announced that the U.S. would be pulling out of the Paris Agreement, an international and in 2020, the US did.

A study by the AP found a correlation with people who believe in climate change and a person’s political association: 89% of democrats believing climate change to be real compared to 57% of republicans.

So why is this important? And how does it affect climate policies?

Because whether we like it or not, people who are unwilling to vote on climate policies because they think it is not an issue represent a good majority of politicians in the senate and the house. But for most cases, it's not that these people don’t believe in climate change, but rather they care more about other issues.

A study done by the PEW research center shows that republicans are open to some climate policy even though they assign it a low priority issue. The same study shows that members of the GOP are less likely to vote on bills that place “tougher restrictions on power plant emissions, taxing corporations based on the carbon emissions they produce and tougher fuel efficiency standards for cars and trucks.”

This does not mean that Republicans are against climate reform. Instead, it shows that these politicians care more for policies, primarily economic policies, over climate change, something that is very on brand for the GOP.

That being said, at some point in time, we have to acknowledge that these climate policies need to take priority if we want to be able to do anything about climate policy. Even if economic policies are important, climate change is a global scale threat that can and will render our planet inhabitable.

Environmental protections should be at the top of the list when it comes to policies if we want to do anything to help lessen the effects of climate change. And to do so, would require money to be put in for environmental restraints, renewable energy research, and pollution reduction.

The United States Budget is about 4.79 trillion dollars, with only barely even 3 billion designated to environmental protection, which is barely enough money to be able to sustain what we currently are trying to do.

The truth of the matter is that the US needs to spend more money on climate reform whether we want to or not. The situation is not something that can be cast aside because economics should take priority.

If there aren’t people who can contribute to the economy, then what is the point of prioritizing economic policies over that of environmental ones?