海角大神

The red sign on the red-draped table reads, 鈥淪top Socialism. Unleash Capitalism.鈥澨鼺or an exhibitor at America鈥檚 largest annual conservative shindig, it鈥檚 a slogan as truism, as ubiquitous as U.S. flags and Make America Great Again caps.

But the actual political messaging by Young Conservatives for Carbon Dividends (YCCD) borders on subversive. At its booth, sandwiched between the Federalist Society and a pro-Electoral College group, smartly dressed students make the case for Republicans to accept mainstream climate science and support a carbon tax as a capitalist solution.

For a party whose titular head, President Donald Trump, rejects the established science and has torn up regulations that restrain carbon emissions, that sounds like a tough sell. And a tax is still a tax, even if the revenue is to be returned in full to taxpayers as a dividend.听

But when Elise LaFleur, a politics senior at Catholic University of America in Washington, drops by the YCCD booth, she comes away impressed.听For her generation, global warming isn鈥檛 a hoax but a reality to be faced, the sooner the better.听

鈥淚t鈥檚 a conversation we need to be having,鈥� she says.听鈥淐onservatives do care about the climate.鈥�

From college campuses to Washington think tanks, the ground is shifting beneath the feet of a party that has long sought refuge in climate obfuscation. Republicans鈥� fitful efforts to correct course 鈥� and hold onto voters concerned about climate 鈥� have largely been eclipsed by President Trump鈥檚 regulatory bonfires and cheerleading for fossil fuels.听But GOP lawmakers in Congress have begun to support various proposals aimed at limiting emissions, including a carbon dividend plan backed by banks, manufacturers, and energy companies.听听

鈥淭he question is not whether or not you view climate change as an issue that requires a solution, but what is your policy and how do you intend to reduce carbon emissions?鈥� says Ryan Costello, a Republican and former U.S. House representative听who lobbies for the dividend plan.

This shift on the right hasn鈥檛 yet translated into votes in Congress. Eight bills have been introduced by Democrats in the House and Senate that would put a price on carbon,听according to E&E News. But they have only a handful of Republican co-sponsors, and Rep. Francis Rooney, a Florida Republican who has co-sponsored several such bills, is stepping down this year.

Moreover, some of the GOP solutions 鈥撎齪lanting trees, subsidizing technology 鈥撎齠all well short of a comprehensive approach to rival the Democrats鈥� aspirational Green New Deal. When House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy unveiled his climate platform in January, it avoided carbon taxes and didn鈥檛 set any overall targets for emissions cuts.听

This reluctance to grapple with carbon pricing is understandable, given where Republicans started, says Joseph Majkut, director of climate policy at the Niskanen Center, a centrist think tank that supports a carbon tax. 鈥淎ssembling a large coalition is an iterative process. These ideas need to be vetted and understood and stress-tested,鈥� he says.听

鈥淚t鈥檚 not easy to be a sore thumb鈥�

For activists like Kiera听O鈥橞rien, a Harvard senior and president of YCCD, student-led advocacy on climate policy offers a path to prod Republican leaders off the fence. She鈥檚 tired of being asked by left-leaning students why conservatives are ignoring the climate crisis. She also knows that at partisan events like last week鈥檚 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), critics might spy a sellout to the left鈥檚 climate agenda.听听

鈥淚t鈥檚 not easy to be a sore thumb in the Republican Party saying, 鈥榃e need a solution,鈥欌�� she says.

But it is getting easier, says Alex Flint, executive director of the Alliance for Market Solutions, a conservative, pro-carbon-tax group that works on Capitol Hill, far from the grassroots foment at CPAC. In 2018, when he met with 82 Republican members of Congress, all but one acknowledged climate change was a reality,听even though 鈥渢hey weren鈥檛 having that conversation publicly,鈥� he says.

In 2019 鈥渢hat conversation went public,鈥� he says. GOP lawmakers 鈥渁re now beginning to explore what are the policies they can embrace to address it, and what are the politics of those policies. Because they have to understand both.鈥澨�

Polls show that young conservatives are increasingly concerned about the climate and want to see action.听In a Pew survey听last October, more than half of millennial and Generation Z听Republicans said the government wasn鈥檛 doing enough on climate, compared with 31% of boomers and those older. Still, a partisan divide remains: Among Democrats the overall share was 90%, compared with 39% for Republicans.听

And while voters express concern, the saliency of climate varies. In听surveys taken over the past decade听by Yale and George Mason universities, the share of Republicans who said global warming should be 鈥渁 very high priority鈥� for the federal government never broke 10%; among Democrats it rose from 20% in 2010 to 48% in 2019.听

Growing up in Alaska, which is warming faster than the rest of the continental United States, Ms. O鈥橞rien could see the effects of climate change. She also warmed to the idea of a dividend from carbon taxes since Alaska has returned some of its oil wealth this way for decades; Ms. O鈥橞rien鈥檚 parents saved their annual checks to help pay for her college tuition.听

That鈥檚 why she goes to bat for a carbon-tax plan at CPAC, as well as at environmental events where, as a Republican, she鈥檚 in the minority.听

Beyond belief

At the opposite end of the spectrum is the Heartland Institute, a climate-denial group that is a perennial at CPAC, pushing a free-market vision of abundant fossil fuels. This year the Chicago-based group hosted Naomi Seibt, a German teenager and 鈥渃limate realism鈥� YouTuber, seeking to counter the reach of Greta Thunberg, the Swedish schoolgirl turned climate icon.听

The event for Ms. Seibt was barely a quarter full, though, and a modest Heartland booth in the exhibit hall was similarly becalmed. (YCCD and Heartland were both CPAC sponsors.)听

The YCCD booth saw plenty of foot traffic, including young attendees who wanted selfies with the life-size cutouts of former Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush that bracketed the table. In Ms. O鈥橞rien鈥檚 eyes, both presidents are reminders that Republicans can lead nationally and internationally on climate policy.

Some older attendees took offense. 鈥淵ou believe in climate change? That鈥檚 nuts,鈥� a middle-aged man told a YCCD volunteer, who calmly tried to explain the science behind the policy. 鈥淵ou鈥檙e just taking what the media says,鈥� the man scoffed, claiming that NASA data showed three years of falling global temperatures (in fact, 2019 was the second hottest year recorded, after 2016).

Ms. O鈥橞rien says she鈥檚 not trying to convert older climate skeptics. Her goal is to find young conservatives interested in pursuing bipartisan solutions to a self-evident problem.听

鈥淩epublicans have abandoned this issue to the Democratic Party for the past 30 years. As a young Republican, that is unacceptable,鈥� she says.听

Mr. Costello, a two-term representative from Pennsylvania who stepped down in 2018, says that Democrats may be out front on climate but they鈥檙e divided on what to do. 鈥淭he Democrats have not unified around a particular solution and nor have Republicans. What I鈥檇 like to see is Republicans unify around this solution,鈥� he says, referring to carbon dividends.听

How long that takes, and whether success ultimately hinges on a change in the White House, is unknowable. Analysts say the current jockeying may not bear fruit until the next Congress.听

Mr. Flint, a former staff director of the U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, has a theory of change. 鈥淧oliticians in a democracy are not necessarily leaders,鈥� he says, noting that scientists and economists have led on climate, and corporations have joined them. Elected officials, like ordinary voters, have been slower to grasp the policy challenge.听

鈥淚n a democracy, maybe it鈥檚 good that politicians wait until there鈥檚 a consensus among voters for change. And what鈥檚 happening now is there is increasingly a political imperative to take action.鈥澨�