Delegation aims to portray party as engaged even as Republicans back home have downplayed and dismissed climate change.

A handful of Republican members of Congress have arrived at the UN climate talks in Glasgow in an attempt to portray the party as engaged on the climate crisis, with this message already badly undermined by colleagues back in the US who have downplayed and even dismissed the impacts of global heating during the summit.

A delegation of five Republican lawmakers arrived at the talks, known as Cop26, on the weekend and will depart on Tuesday. Garret Graves, a Louisiana Republican, said that the politicians were “not going there just to drink” and will hold a number of meetings to stress a different approach to climate change than Joe Biden.

“Republicans care deeply about the environment and preserving it for future generations,” insisted John Curtis, a Republican congressman from Utah and another member of the group. “We have ideas, and we want to be at the table to find solutions.”

But the tone has been markedly different from the bulk of elected Republicans back in the US, who have either ignored the landmark talks, which scientists say must deliver rapid cuts in planet-heating emissions to avoid catastrophic climate change around the world, or sought to dismiss its importance.

Highlighting the dismissal of climate science that permeates the GOP unlike any other major political party around the world, Steve Scalise, the Republican whip in the House of Representatives, said last week that “it gets warmer, it gets colder – that’s called Mother Nature”.

Scalise added that “carbon emissions have been around from when before man walked the Earth … the idea that hurricanes or wildfires were caused in just the last few years is just fallacy.”

The world’s leading climate scientists have said that the evidence that humans are altering the climate is “unequivocal” and that “irreversible” impacts are being locked in by continued burning of fossil fuels that is causing the world to heat up.

The world’s temperature is now higher than at any point in human civilization, with scientists warning that disastrous heatwaves, floods and wildfires are pushing many parts of the world towards the edge of human livability.

Other Republicans attacked Biden’s attendance at the talks. Senator John Barrasso, of Wyoming, questioned the emissions of flying a “bloated US delegation” to Scotland while Senator John Kennedy, of Louisiana, said that Biden, his climate envoy John Kerry and “other Trotsky-like wokers” want to “buy natural gas and oil from other countries, and basically give countries that hate us more money, so they’ll have weapons to try to kill us”.

The comments have prompted ridicule from climate experts.

“I couldn’t believe that comment from Scalise, it was extraordinary, just unbelievable,” said Robert Brulle, a professor of sociology and environmental science at Drexel University. “It’s the most retro thing I’ve seen in a long time. It’s comical in a way – do they expect people to take them seriously when they say things like this?”

Republican disdain for climate science was embodied by Donald Trump, who famously called it a “hoax” and “bullshit”, but the party has sought to reset its image somewhat since the former president’s electoral defeat last year. Polling shows that younger Republicans, in particular, are concerned about climate breakdown and want the party to reflect this.

“This sort of rhetoric is the old talking points and we clearly need new talking points spread more widely,” said Bob Inglis, a former Republican congressman who founded republicEn, a group that advocates for climate policy.

Inglis said he hoped the Republicans going to Glasgow will realize the benefits of a global price put on carbon dioxide emissions, a policy favored by some moderate members of the party, such as Utah senator Mitt Romney, who see it as an effective market-based response to the climate crisis.

“I hope they get a sense of how vital it is for America to lead, that they have a sense of acceptance and are welcomed into the conversation,” Inglis said. “I hope they get that vibe rather than told they are the dumb kids in class. That probably won’t be helpful.”

Despite the calls for change from sections of the Republican party, it still has yet to put forward any sort of substantive plan that would deal with the climate crisis, nor set out how its focus on innovation and voluntary action will hit emissions reduction targets scientists say are urgently needed to avoid disastrous global heating.

With this lacking, critics say the party’s gradual change in rhetoric is little more than a superficial rebrand to avoid alienating the growing number of American voters, battered by several years of worsening fires and floods, who say they are alarmed about the climate emergency.

Republicans also remain closely aligned to the fossil fuel industry, with a recent Congressional questioning of the oil and gas companies that knowingly caused dangerous global heating resulting in several GOP members apologizing to executives for the hearing and refraining from asking them about climate change.

“That was really a demonstration to me of how the Republican party aren’t engaging in a good faith debate on climate change, they have no solutions and just preach the ideology of fossil fuel companies,” said Brulle. “I just can’t take them seriously on climate. It is somewhat depressing to see the lockstep the Republicans are marching to on this.”

From The Guardian.com