He's not a denier, but his climate change policies still reek.
If you watched the junior varsity Republican debate Wednesday night, you got to see two candidates talk (oh-so-briefly) about climate change who aren't in the deniers' corner: former New York Gov. George Pataki
John Kasich and South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham. But while admitting that human-caused climate change is real, both have adopted a fossil fuel-friendly "all of the above" energy approach and support other policies that will worsen greenhouse gas emissions rather than reduce them. Then, too, neither guy has a chance of getting the nomination.
Almost without a doubt, that's also true for New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who got unsolicited advice Thursday from The New York Times editorial board to drop out of the contest. But since he was the only Varsity Republican to be asked a climate change question by CNBC moderators in Boulder, it's worth looking at what he had to say (and comparing it with what he has done) on the subject. And Ben Adler at Grist executed a fine vivisection.
Unlike the highest-ranked Republican candidates, Christie actually accepts the science of climate change. He noted in the debate that New Jersey ranks third in installed solar power. “[W]e worked with the private sector to make solar energy affordable and available to businesses and individuals in our state,” he said. Adler writes:
Christie actually weakened New Jersey’s renewable energy goal. His predecessor, Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine, set a goal of getting 30 percent of the state’s electricity from renewable sources by 2021; Christie lowered that to 22.5 percent. The director of the Sierra Club’s New Jersey chapter, Jeff Tittel, attributes the state’s strength in total solar deployment to Christie’s predecessors. “Under Christie, we went on monthly solar installation from second in the nation down to eight, and we are still No. 3 on overall installation because of past administrations. We will be fourth soon,” says Tittel. According to the Solar Energy Industries Association, New Jersey is third in cumulative installed solar capacity, but fifth in solar capacity per capita and not even in the top 10 for the percentage of new electrical capacity that comes from solar.
Christie also said that Hillary Clinton, President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry just want to add more taxes and give the revenue to Washington to deal with climate change. In fact, neither Obama's climate policies or proposals nor Clinton's contain any new taxes. Instead, says Adler: "they want to charge polluters a fee and rebate the revenue to taxpayers."
Christie also backs the "all of the above" approach to energy production as a solution to climate change. That's a big "huh?" Adler points out, since it's counterproductive to be boosting production of oil, which has the second worst carbon footprint after coal.
The governor did praise Iowa's status as the state that generates the most electricity from wind power. Iowa wind turbines generated 28.5 percent of the state's electricity in 2014 and will probably generate 30 percent this year. The Department of Energy's Wind Vision report says the state could be generating 40 percent by 2020 and far more by 2030, producing enough for 6.3 million homes. Iowa's whole population is only 3.1 million, so that would mean plenty of electricity for export.
Christie said Iowa's transition has occurred because of private-sector entrepreneurship not government meddling. In fact, those Iowa wind turbines wouldn't even be there were it not for state and federal policies that many Republicans—though not most of those in Iowa—have recently taken to attacking. All in all, while Christie likes to style himself a moderate in the matter of global warming, he's just another practitioner of truthiness in the matter.