Former New York Gov. George Pataki, a long shot contender for the Republican nomination for the presidency, broke his near silence on the issue of climate change, proclaiming his support for addressing the issue in an interview with Grist. “I’d love to shout it from the rooftop! And I hope to do that. I wish I’d been asked the [climate] question at the debate.”
Pataki, who participated in both the preliminary debates held for lower polling candidates, has a history of supporting policies to curb climate change emissions. When asked to state his current position on climate change, Pataki replied: “Two things are non-questionable: one is that human activity is emitting CO2 into the atmosphere, and the second is that CO2 is a greenhouse gas that warms the Earth. So yes, I think that global warming is real.”
Pataki opposes President Obama’s Clean Power Plan and has retreated from previous support for cap and trade as a mechanism for reducing carbon emissions. “What we need to do in America is create the technologies that will allow us to actually move toward decarbonization while growing the economy,” he explained. “We should also be looking at next-generation nukes. We should be looking at our infrastructure, our electric grid. We have enormous solar and wind resources. We should be looking at innovative ways that the federal government can assist with expediting the permitting process so that we can have more remote renewable resources accessible to places where the demand actually is.”
“An intelligent solution always works,” Pataki said.”I don’t think there will ever be a perfect solution… We have to be a party that is forward-looking, that has confidence in people, and looks to empower people as opposed to trying to appeal to a small constituency in a primary process.”