Don’t let the Heritage Foundation’s denialism ‘Mandate’ drive our climate agenda 

Anyone watching the debates among the GOP presidential aspirants is likely in need of a reality check — especially when it comes to climate change. Why, with the relentless onslaught of disasters enhanced by human-caused global warming, is there no thoughtful discussion of policies to address this problem?  

It appears at least some of the GOP contenders are still reluctant to disavow the baseless assertion that the issue is a hoax, or the accusation that the remedies are worse than the illness, or that continued dependence on fossil fuels is necessary for the health of the economy. The recently released report “Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise” provides valuable insight into the arguments that undergird the candidates’ positions on the issue.  

The nearly thousand-page tome is the product of the Heritage Foundation, an influential conservative think tank. Containing hundreds of specific recommendations for dismantling the “administrative state” and supposedly returning self-governance to the American people, the report is a gameplan for a potential Republican administration. In the view of the report’s writers, climate change is not a real problem but simply a warped appendage of the woke agenda. 

It is no surprise that the Mandate will resonate with much of the Republican base and provide talking points for the remaining presidential hopefuls. The public needs to understand the kind of world the report seeks to create, as well as the chilling implications of its proposals.  

This due diligence is particularly important in light of the Heritage Foundation’s dismal track record when it has weighed in on past environmental issues, such as the ozone hole, acid rain and the criteria air pollutants. The Foundation became infamous for its false counternarratives: the science was always unsettled, benefits always paled in comparison to control costs, and the science community was driven by a thirst for research dollars rather than the imperative to advance understanding of complex scientific issues.  

The Heritage prescription for dealing with the threat of global warming today is to back out of the Paris climate agreement for the second time, impair the scientific community’s ability to collect and interpret key climate data sets, relax existing greenhouse gas regulations and gut energy provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act. The report reads like a playbook for powerful fossil fuel interests, their lobbyists and an assortment of right-wing enthusiasts.  

The Mandate reserves some of its most bombastic rhetoric when arguing for the expanded use of fossil fuels. Note its Forward, which states “Environmental ideologues would ban the fuels that run almost all of the world’s cars, planes, factories, farms, and electricity grid … regarding human activity itself as fundamentally a threat to be sacrificed to the god of nature.” By falsely asserting that greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel burning present no harm to our well-being, Heritage disputes any justification for government intervention to curtail these emissions. Instead, it argues that the continued use of fossil fuels is essential to guarantee economic prosperity. Any science suggesting otherwise must be wrong, self-serving or too uncertain to warrant action.  

Indeed, the Heritage Foundation’s prescription to deal with pesky science is to hamstring U.S. efforts to catalog and understand relationships between human activity, climate change, extreme events and human well-being. It recommends dismantling the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) — a major contributor to understanding the climate changes likely to occur over the 21st century — accusing it of “environmental alarmism.”  

But shooting the messenger is rarely a good approach. We might not like medical guidance on the well-understood health dangers of smoking, unhealthy diets and other poor lifestyle choices. However, incorrectly claiming that such guidance is part of a scientific conspiracy would be unwise. And it would be equally unwise to close down the research institutes that provided us with reliable information about the likely health consequences of poor lifestyle choices.  

The Mandate’s counternarrative simply never considers that climate change may be real and costly, ignoring the robust science that has established the causal links. In turning a blind eye to these ever-mounting damages, and to the many harms of climate change to human well-being, Heritage is providing indirect subsidies to fossil fuels. 

These subsidies, although implicit, nonetheless subvert the free-market capitalism so fervently championed by the authors, who would have you believe that the energy sector is a pure case of Adam Smith’s “invisible hand.” In that ideal world, through free exchange, prices properly reflect the value of goods and services and the economy is silently guided to stability and success.  

For this ideal vision to hold, markets need to accurately reflect the true costs of economic activity. This is surely not the case with domestic energy markets. Unless the playing field is leveled and choices reflect the true cost of fossil fuel use to human well-being, it is deceitful to imply that market forces magically lead to good decisions.  

Heritage gets further ensnared in inconsistent logic when it tries to argue that the government should not be involved in picking winners. While it seems happy with the enormous financial giveaways to fossil fuel owners, Heritage complains that the National Labs are too focused on promoting renewable technologies. The logic here is not only inconsistent, it is perverse — it is the established oil, gas and coal technologies that are being unduly protected from renewable technology challengers. The latter are competing on an uneven playing field.  

Heritage also ignores the huge damages that stranded assets for energy production and energy use are likely to inflict upon the U.S. economy. When the true costs of fossil fuels become apparent, much of the current energy mix may be rendered obsolete for fear of causing intolerable damage domestically. In addition, buying U.S. fossil fuel energy will become less attractive to countries wishing to avoid our mistakes and protect their citizens’ health. By downplaying the needed transformation of the energy system, Heritage is backing yesterday’s technologies, rather than embracing the new machineries that will power human societies in the 21st century. Their short-sightedness is constraining rather than advancing U.S. economic prosperity and competitiveness. 

The Mandate’s recommendations are most worrisome for global greenhouse gas emissions. If the U.S. refuses to put its own house in order, it will forfeit any moral influence it may still have on developing countries. It will provide developing nations with cover to embrace a development path fraught with the dangers of unfettered fossil fuel use. Moreover, poorer countries require expertise, technology and financial support from the world’s wealthiest nation; this is unlikely to be forthcoming from an America unwilling to forgo the use of its own fossil fuels.  

The Mandate points out that many countries, most notably China, have a spotty record when it comes to international environmental accords. The authors suggest that if the U.S. were to meet its Paris commitments while others abandoned theirs, we would be incurring losses and our adversaries would benefit. This is a major sticking point for some GOP presidential aspirants — even those who believe that climate change presents a real problem. They can use the Mandate to argue (in the words of one GOP senator) that we will be played for “suckers” by other countries. 

What are the implications of the Mandate’s call for a complete U.S. withdrawal from the global community of nations seeking to reduce emissions of planet-warming greenhouse gases? In our view, a U.S. withdrawal would spark a global “fossil-fuel-free-for-all.” The impacts would affect every present and future citizen of this planet.  

The atmosphere is a global commons shared by all nations. The science tells us that, once emitted, greenhouse gases become well-mixed across the globe. Respecting no national boundaries, they influence global climate and, in turn, all nations, be they wealthy or poor, democratic or non-democratic. Rich countries may be better able to lessen the harshest impacts. But the wildfires, droughts and extreme storms of recent years have demonstrated that even the wealthiest countries are not immune to the many harms caused by increased warming and sea level rise.  

The greatest harm will be to the two-thirds of the world that contributed least to current warming. If the global emission reduction efforts falter, the ensuing damages to the most vulnerable will be especially dire. The world is already plagued with failed nation-states unable to sustain their population while maintaining political stability. As the number of these nation-state failures increases, there will be hundreds of millions of environmental refugees and stateless people, taxing the available resources of the entire planet. 

The map presented in the Heritage Foundation’s Mandate is of a road to ruin. Continuing down its suggested path will assuredly result in Heritage’s “god of nature” setting us straight, followed by frantic attempts to change course. It is a roadmap born out of willful denial. It will not lead to enduring prosperity for the U.S. or for any other country. We encourage all to take note of the Mandate before deciding how to vote in 2024. 

Richard Richels directed global climate change research at the Electric Power Research Institute. He served as lead author for multiple chapters of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in the areas of mitigation, impacts and adaptation. 

Henry Jacoby is the William F. Pounds Professor of Management, Emeritus, in the M.I.T. Sloan School of Management and founding co-director of the M.I.T. Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change. 

Benjamin Santer is an atmospheric scientist who has worked on all previous Scientific Assessment Reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. 

Gary Yohe is the Huffington Foundation professor of Economics and Environmental Studies, Emeritus, at Wesleyan University in Connecticut. He served as convening lead author for multiple chapters and the Synthesis Report for the IPCC from 1990 through 2014 and was vice-chair of the Third US National Climate Assessment.