I live in the charming and historical New England town of Concord, MA., home of Walden Pond, made famous by Henry David Thoreau. A few weeks ago I drove by Walden Pond on my way to have lunch with a liberal (easy to find them in my home state!) friend who is doing important work in addressing climate change. Towards the end of the lunch (her treat so my turn next time) she said, “Bob, you may already know this, but people are talking. They know you’re hanging out with Republicans and wonder if you’re still concerned about climate change.”

Yes, I’m still concerned about climate change. Very concerned. So are a number of conservatives. One of the many benefits of my “GOP Outreach Campaign” with my Republican lawyer friends Dan Crowley and Tim Doyle and Libertarian 😱 friend Eli Lehrer, co-founder and President of the center-right think tank The R Street Institute (“Free Markets. Real Solutions.”), is that I have met a number of conservatives who are very concerned about climate change as well.

While liberals may think that all conservatives are climate change deniers (and the MAGA crowd provides some glaring support for this view), this is simply not true. Take for example, the Conservative Climate Caucus, whose founder and Chair is Rep. John Curtis (R-UT) with Vice Chair Rep. Mariannette Meeker-Meeks (R-IA). It has 81 members including 11 from Texas and six from Florida. The homepage of its website states:

“What We Believe

• The climate is changing, and decades of a global industrial era that has brought prosperity to the world has also contributed to that change.
• Private sector innovation, American resources, and R&D investment have resulted in lower emissions and affordable energy, placing the United States as the global leader in reducing emissions
• Climate change is a global issue and China is the greatest immediate obstacle to reducing world emissions. Solutions should reduce global emissions and not just be ‘feel good’ policies
• Practical and exportable answers can be found in innovation embraced by the free market. Americans and the rest of the world want access to cheaper, reliable, and cleaner energy
• With innovative technologies, fossil fuels can and should be a major part of the global solution
• Reducing emissions is the goal, not reducing energy choices”

Concept illustration Global warming around the world is about to be burned by human hands (3D image) | GETTY

An Oil & Gas Company Corporate Director’s Perspective

Another example is my friend Greg Goff who had a distinguished career at ConocoPhillips before becoming the CEO at Andeavor. In 2018 he was named by the Harvard Business Review as one of the top performing CEOs in the world. He is now a board member at ExxonMobil, placed there as a result of the Engine No. 1 campaign. Last December I did an interview with him and asked what his sense of urgency was regarding climate change. His reply: “My view is that this is the biggest challenge of my lifetime. In addition to having a sense of urgency, it is important there is a very well-developed framework to drive change as we decarbonize.” Since then Greg and I have kept in touch. I learn something about how to address climate change every time I talk to him.

A State Pension Fund CIO’s Perspective

On the investor side, I’ve also learned a lot from my friend and collaborator John Skjervem (another Libertarian 😉), the CIO of Utah Retirement Systems which has $54 billion in AUM. John and I first crossed paths many years ago when I was the Chairman of the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB). John has been a strong supporter of SASB, now part of the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB), to this day. We were re-introduced to each other by my good friend Allison Binns who chaired a panel on ESG at a conference where John was a vocal critic (for some solid reasons and not the crazy right wing stuff I’ve written so much about). John and I then wrote a piece together titled “Climate Change, Misguided Activism, and a Roadmap for Institutional Investors.” I also did a fireside chat with him at a top1000funds conference held at Oxford in November.

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