It is time for Republicans to quit denying humans have had an impact on climate change and to create policies to address the issue, former GOP Ohio Gov. John Kasich plans to say at a speech at the University of British Columbia Tuesday night.
"This is like a call to arms," Kasich, now a senior political analyst for CNN, told Axios, while revealing his plans. "Let's have conservatives have a discussion instead of being in denial that this is a problem. You can't just be a science denier."
His comments are a shift from when he was seeking the 2016 Republican nomination, when he said the human impact on climate change was not clear and he did not want to "destroy people's jobs, based on some theory that is not proven."
Kasich told Axios that "we all evolve." He also cited a federal government report, released under the Trump administration, that shows how humans are affecting climate change.
The former governor said he plans to lay out a "centrist' climate policy, that includes subsidies for technologies such as electric vehicles and renewables and a price for carbon dioxide emissions. He added that he opposes the Green New Deal, but at the same time, "it’s not enough to say you don’t like that and not have something you can be for."
Kasich would not confirm if he'll run for president again in 2020. The last time he ran, he won just one state: his own.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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