It is indeed essential to grasp the stark divergence that crystallized in 2012 regarding climate change policy, with Republican Party leaders largely opposing action and openly denying the science, while the Democratic Party championed spending programs on renewable energy and “green jobs”. This marked a pivotal moment in American politics, revealing deeply entrenched ideological divides and the significant influence of particular interests.
Prior to this period, Republican leaders had often shown a different approach to environmental policy, demonstrating leadership on air pollution and conservation initiatives. For instance, Republican President Richard Nixon signed the Clean Air Act amendments of 1970, which significantly expanded federal authority to reduce emissions, and created the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Even George H. W. Bush signed the Clean Air Act amendments of 1990 and explored market-based solutions like “cap-and-trade” for acid rain, a concept initially supported by the Heritage Foundation. The George W. Bush administration, despite its ties to fossil fuel industries and occasional flirtation with climate change denial, still professed a desire to address the problem by subsidizing biofuels and hydrogen electricity, and Texas, under his governorship, became a leader in wind energy. Indeed, for a time in the mid-2000s, there was an “emerging scientific consensus” that “dragged Republicans toward supporting action,” with both parties’ platforms containing climate change planks.
However, the late 2000s and early 2010s saw a “remarkable and rapid polarization” of party positions on climate change. By 2012, major Republican Party leaders not only opposed policy changes but openly denied the science behind climate change. This shift was heavily influenced by “ideological conservatives” who viewed cap-and-trade policies as a “massive expansion in both federal taxation and regulatory interventions into the domestic economy”. They were inherently skeptical of claims from scientists, academics, and bureaucrats about climate change, believing the economic costs would be tremendous. Figures like Senator James Inhofe famously used props like a snowball on the Senate floor to “prove that climate change wasn’t real”. This echoes a broader trend where, particularly during the Trump administration, climate science was “mocked and derided,” with the administration eliminating public references to climate change from federal websites and retaliating against career scientists.
A significant driver of this Republican reversal was the strategic activity of partisan think tanks. Organizations like the Heritage Foundation and the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) became primary sources of information questioning climate science. They published a vast number of reports that “greatly exaggerated the costs of climate solutions,” such as cap-and-trade or renewable portfolio standards, often presenting projections that were significantly more extreme than those from nonpartisan sources. These think tanks, which had promoted climate change skepticism since the 1980s and 1990s—employing public relations tactics similar to the tobacco industry to cast doubt on scientific consensus—intensified their efforts as climate change gained policy salience. Their aim was to “convince the public, through the media, that climate science is awash in uncertainty,” thereby exploiting journalistic norms towards “balance” to create the appearance of a scientific debate where little consensus existed. This strategy enabled Republican elites to “not only oppose the specific solutions being considered before Congress, but to deny the underlying science of climate change more broadly”.
Conversely, the Democratic Party, which has long been considered the “owners” of environmental policy, “doubled down on the issue,” supporting significant new spending programs on renewable energy and what they termed “green jobs”. This approach was a form of “policy entrepreneurship,” linking climate solutions to economic struggles, particularly in the wake of the Great Recession. For example, the Center for American Progress (CAP), a prominent Democratic-aligned think tank, published reports advocating for renewable energy subsidies, loan guarantees, and energy efficiency, arguing these investments would create “2 million good-paying green jobs”. While the direct short-term impact on employment and wages might have been limited, these recommendations were incorporated into significant legislation like the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, contributing to the growth of renewable energy and electric car industries over the next decade. Democratic think tanks, unlike their Republican counterparts, generally align with scientific consensus and aim to provide “practical” policy advice to achieve specific outcomes, not primarily to challenge underlying scientific facts.
This polarization on climate change is a salient example of how, in contemporary American politics, “both political parties have their own professional classes of partisan experts to rival neutral technocrats”. This creates a scenario where, even when a problem like climate change is widely recognized, achieving bipartisan consensus on solutions becomes incredibly difficult because the parties may “disagree about whether the solution will solve the problem or its secondary consequences”. This dynamic ultimately contributes to a perception of governmental paralysis and can erode public faith in democratic institutions to address their problems.