Robinson Meyer is an award-winning journalist who currently works as the Executive Editor of Heatmap, a media company focused on climate change. Prior to founding Heatmap, Robinson covered climate change, energy, and technology for The Atlantic and The New York Times.
Charlie Adams: You’ve written about how Republican presidential candidates have discussed climate in their campaigns. What are some differences between the candidates and do any stand out?
Robinson Meyer: I think you could put them in three categories. There’s Trump who’s pretty peerless and basically pledges to continue the anti-climate deregulatory activities of his first administration. There’s a second category of “standard” Republicans who also want to pursue a deregulatory, anti-climate agenda but acknowledge some of the harmful effects of climate change. Then there’s a last category of Republicans who are trying to do something, but not making a big fuss about it.
In the second group, the divides are in how much you care about the consequences of climate change. If you look at Ron DeSantis’s record, for instance, you’ll see that he’s attended throughout his governorship to the consequences of climate change and sea level rise primarily in terms of how it affects his state. When he took office, he was quite deliberate about repealing policies put in place by his predecessor that blocked any discussion of climate change whatsoever. That said, as climate mitigation efforts are pulled into the culture war, he becomes more antagonistic because that’s kind of his central claim as a candidate.
In your third group is Nikki Haley or Chris Christie. Haley is really interesting. When she was UN ambassador as Trump was pulling out of the Paris Agreement, she was like, “No, Donald Trump believes in climate change.” Even though at the same time he clearly did not. It seemed to be this dynamic where she was saying what she thought and projecting it on Trump so that he wouldn’t reject it.
Broadly, what’s interesting about the candidates is that opposition to climate mitigation — and a willingness to pursue a very fossil fuel-friendly policy —unites a lot of different parts of the Republican Party. I don’t think it’s why most politicians who are Republicans become Republicans but I think it’s something that they basically agree on with some exceptions. If they want to do something about climate change, it’s not usually because they’re extremely personally motivated by climate change, it’s because they understand that it’s a political liability for Republicans to continue having no climate policy, especially with younger voters.
CA: On the flip side, what do you think is the winning message for Biden on climate coming into this campaign?
RM: Well, I would stipulate that the winning message might not be the winning policy, and it may also not be the same thing as what he should do. If we’re talking from a messaging standpoint, Biden is vulnerable because of inflation. We’re having what is on paper some of the highest economic growth in decades, an extremely healthy labor market, household finances look better than they have in a long time, and yet people don’t like the economy.
A key source of inflation that’s very salient to people is gas prices. Biden has really taken an all-of-the-above strategy to bring down gas prices because that’s a giant political vulnerability for him. At the same time, he’s been quite reluctant to take political ownership of these efforts. That’s partially due to demands by climate activists. But there’s another side to that calculus, too. Climate activists really need Democrats in power in order to get anything they want done at the national level, and that may mean that Democrats and Biden should be more upfront about everything they’ve done to reduce gas prices. If you look at the administration, it is trying to walk a balance between maintaining popular support and energy security for the US,while trying to bend the US in the medium and long term toward decarbonization and reducing emissions. Frankly, it’s managing that balance that is the biggest challenge for Biden.
I think there’s another angle to this; if you look at the Republican talking points that are anti-climate policy, they’re all about jobs. But there are a lot of policies in the IRA that are fairly protectionist and anti-China and that are going to create jobs. There’s this tension right now where a lot of policies implemented by the Biden administration have been job-creating without hurting the fossil fuel industry because American oil production is at an all-time high. By repealing those policies Republicans will be killing jobs not only in New York but in Georgia and Arizona. These are the places getting big investments.
CA: With the IRA and the Bipartisan infrastructure deal, a lot has been accomplished from an environmental policy perspective over the last few years. What’s left and what’s next for environmental policy?
RM: It’s such an interesting question because when you ask Congressional aides this, sometimes they’re like, “I don’t know. We’ve tried a lot.”. In terms of what’s left really broadly, let me throw out four options.
First, we need a governmental financing authority, with climate as one of its key tenets, that can provide finance that’s cheaper than the market to certain kinds of industry. Especially if we’re in a long-term high interest rate environment, providing low market finance is really important. And by the way, this is something the US government is already doing abroad. I think it really could get some bipartisan interest domestically, too, though maybe not with this Speaker.
Second, we need a national transportation policy that articulates goals and how we plan to accomplish them in a centralized and coherent way. We’re halfway there. We understand airports, train stations, and highways provide a larger economic value to a region and to the country than their nameplate value states. But we don’t lay out coherent goals, concrete capabilities, that Americans should expect from their transportation system. Like it should be possible to get from DC to Chicago in a certain amount of time for a certain amount of carbon emissions and at a certain price—that’s something people should expect. In terms of making this a reality, I think we should be technology neutral, but goals-focused. For example, when public service commissions want to add electricity to their state they are saying, “This is the capability we want to add to our power system. Now you bring us solutions.” That’s what we should have for transportation.
Related to that is to solve the national housing problem. We know that carbon emissions are very closely related to where you live, how you go about your life, and whether you need certain kinds of transportation to go about your life. We know we don’t have enough of the high-density, multifamily housing that’s associated with low emissions, and we know there’s a lot of demand for it. I think if the government took an active interest in solving that, that would do a lot. We’re trying to build out EVs, but what happens if we also said, “At the same time, if you live in a place where you don’t need a car, that’s also good.”
Lastly, what’s missing from the IRA and what’s missing from our carbon policy is any kind of “stick,” any kind of penalty for emitting carbon. We have a lot of ”carrots” — incentives and subsidies for building the clean stuff. But we don’t penalize the bad.
I’m still not sure if this is a feasible goal. On the one hand, it’s hard for me to imagine tighter regulation passing today. On the other hand, I think if rates stay high, there is going to be interest politically in doing what we can to bring them down. That may involve either raising revenue or cutting spending at the federal level. Can I imagine Republicans voting for a carbon tax today? No, not really. But there could be a very feasible compromise to be made here, and remember basically every oil company has endorsed the idea of a carbon tax. So I can see it.
CA: Earlier this year, you launched Heatmap, a media company focused on climate and energy. Why start this publication now? Was there something missing from environmental journalism?
RM: The short version of the pitch is there are a lot of readers out there who are really, really interested in sophisticated coverage of climate change, the energy transition, the rise of climate tech, and decarbonization, but who were not themselves professionals. The idea of Heatmap is that we’re an online magazine that writes on this with authority, voice, and insight that addresses a general but sophisticated audience. Heatmap is also independent. There’s a lot of climate coverage out there that when you look at this advertising in it, it’s oil companies. And while it’s not the same, many outlets are also funded by the same foundations or funders running some of the biggest political initiatives in climate politics. I also think there’s a lot of sincere disagreement in the climate policy world that doesn’t get covered but is really fascinating — I’m talking about real, actual differences of opinion and differences of value and differences of priority among people who all want to decarbonize. I think sometimes climate journalists can shy away from covering those disagreements, and my hope for Heatmap is that we don’t shy away from covering them, and that we cover them openly and honestly.
*This interview has been edited for length and clarity.