Interview: A Conservative Who Believes Climate Change is Real

Republican Congressman Bob Inglis lost his 2010 re-election bid after telling a campaign audience he believed in human-caused climate change. Since then, he has served as executive director of the Energy and Enterprise Initiative, which seeks to convince conservatives that climate change is real and that free enterprise principles hold the keys for dealing with it. In an interview with Yale Environment 360, Inglis talks about his own evolution from being a climate change denier; why he favors a carbon tax and the end of all fuel subsidies; why conservatives have been so reluctant to acknowledge that climate change is real; and why his group is focusing its efforts on college Republicans. “We’re trying to convince conservatives that they are more important to this than they ever imagined,” he says, “because they have the answer, which is free enterprise. And it’s a better answer than a regulatory regime.”

Read the interview