Who Says No? A Climate Change Compromise

Many on the left are up in arms over Trump backing out of the Paris agreement. Ignoring the fact that the agreement says that countries are free to set their own targets and their own policies and is largely symbolic anyway, let’s work under the assumption that liberals actually believe that this policy is disastrous for the earth’s future. In fact, let’s start from the (perhaps ridiculous) assumption that everybody in this debate is being intellectually honest.

Then Republicans have a great opportunity. Offer Democrats a compromise. The United States will re-enter the Paris agreement. And they’ll go even further. Democrats will be given full control over all matters of the environment. Carbon taxes, cap and trade, clean energy subsidies, whatever they want. Completely blank check.

In return, Republicans get everything else. They can pass whatever tax code they want, any deregulation they want. Democrats will have no say in healthcare, no control over education, no input at all over any issue except climate.

So my question is: who says no? Republicans (and Trump) have to go back on one of their key issues and allow the Democrats free reign. But for sucking up their pride on one thing they get everything they’ve ever wanted for a whole range of others. And what about the Democrats? Sure they’d be sacrificing a lot. In their view, we’d be significantly worse off in the short run. But isn’t that worth saving the world? If the results of climate change are truly catastrophic, isn’t it worth some people in the richest country in the world not having health insurance? Isn’t it worth middle class Americans being required to take out student loans to attend college?

Now maybe there are some issues that are as important as climate. If you think Republican control of the military would lead to nuclear war, then of course that can’t be part of the deal. Fine, keep that one. I’ll even throw in gun control, another issue that seems to be of vital importance for the left.  You can come up with your own list of some other issues you would never want to compromise on to save the world. But that list should be very small.

So who says no? I can’t imagine any Republican ever denying the above compromise. But I also doubt a single Democrat would take it. If that prediction is right, we are left with three possible conclusions. The first, which I think we can rule out, is that Democrats believe giving Republicans complete control over anything would be worse than the end of the world. The second, which could be true, is that they believe they can convince Republicans of the correctness of their view without conceding too much. Considering their lack of success to this point, and the apparent urgency with which they believe something needs to be done, this also seems unlikely. So we are left with the third, and in my opinion most likely, option: Despite their rhetoric, Democrats are simply not that concerned about climate change.