That's Nice! GQP Climate Summit Attendees 'Do Not Plan To Directly Undermine The Conference"

[hatrack]

Links at original.

Every few months, a few Republicans manage to get good press off of a promise that they’ve totally changed their climate denying ways, and are now definitely acting in good faith in their search for climate solutions. And despite a supposedly new set of rhetoric acknowledging climate change, they always trot out the same old policies that prop up the polluters causing the climate crisis.

It was no different last week, as the Washington Examiner, Politico and the Washington Post all, relatively uncritically, reported that the GOP is sending some members of Congress to the COP26 climate negotiations. And, supposedly, unlike past years, they’re not going to try and disrupt it, but instead to show that Republicans really do care about the climate and have real solutions for the crisis.

“The Republicans who are attending acknowledge the reality of climate change,” Politico’s Morning Energy (brought to you by Chevron) reported, “and do not plan to directly undermine the conference.” Oh, really? First of all, "directly" is doing a lot of work there. Secondly, here's the next sentence: “But they also do not support either the Paris Agreement or specific emissions reductions targets.” Huh. So they’re not trying to directly undermine the conference, they’re just not supportive of the agreement that basically every nation on Earth signed up for — and is basically the premise of most of the negotiating that will be happening there — and they oppose anything that actually aims to reduce fossil fuel emissions.

EDIT

So before the next reporter jumps on the counter-intuitive “GOP cares about climate now!” bandwagon, maybe they should actually take a minute to sit down and watch the two hour event in which some of the exact same Republicans going to COP26 demonstrated exactly how serious they are about climate change by invoking speculative conspiracy theories that preemptively blame Democrats and climate policies for working with the Taliban to mine metals that every piece of technology with a battery needs, but they portray as some innate weakness of renewable energy. Sure, Republicans are going to COP26 in good faith and not to undermine climate solutions! But first, they just had to hold a quick forum accusing Democrats of enriching terrorists.

EDIT/END

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2021/10/25/2060100/-Repubs-Going-To-Climate-Talks-In-Good-Faith-But-First-Claim-Climate-Action-Is-Good-For-Taliban

[yellowcanine]

1. BC indirectly undermining it is so much better...