Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina said one nation is not able to reverse climate change alone, adding that China is not going to follow America’s example.
“Liberals don’t want us to read the fine print in the science and all of those scientists who tell us that climate change is real and that it’s caused by manmade activity, they also agree a single state or a single nation acting alone can make no difference at all but they don’t want you to read that fine print. The environmental rules that the EPA is pushing forward now on a national basis were modeled after California’s environmental rules,” Fiorina, former CEO of Hewlett-Packard, said at the National Review’s Ideas Summit on Saturday.
She formally announced her candidacy for president on Monday.
Fiorina explained that AB 32, the California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, focuses a huge amount of taxpayer funds and resources on the protection of fish in the Delta, flies in the Inland Empire and frogs along the coastal waterways.
“Honestly speaking, if you are a California rancher or a dairy farmer and you own more than 100 head of cattle, you must equip them with some sort of device, really, I’m not making this up, so their emissions – I don’t want to get too graphic but you can imagine what I’m talking about – so that their emissions aren’t contributing to global warming,” she said.
“Honestly, this is insanity and all that California is going to do won’t make any difference at all and all this nation is going to do; it’s not going to make any difference at all except it makes a huge difference in people’s lives.”
In November, President Obama pledged $3 billion in aid for an international fund to help developing countries fight climate change.
Fiorina argued that the U.S. solely reducing emissions cannot reverse climate change but it would be costly for the nation’s economy.
“So you have 40 percent employment in the town of Mendota and you have 40 percent unemployment now in coal mining communities in Kentucky or West Virginia and when you have that kind of unemployment, what do you have? You have drug abuse, you have substance abuse, you have alcoholism, you have violence in families, that’s the effect and meanwhile we’re not going to make any difference at all,” Fiorina said.
“And when people say to me, ‘Well, we’re going to lead by example and China will follow our example.’ Please, China isn’t going to follow our example. I’ve done business there for 25 years. What they’re meanwhile doing is figuring out how do we make technological advances for clean coal, etcetera. The answer to this problem is innovation, not regulation, and of course the more regulation we impose on our economy, the less innovation we get,” she added.
Fiorina recommended that Republicans not argue with Democrats over whether the science behind climate change is real or not.
“What we ought to throw back in liberals’ faces is what the science actually says. A single nation alone will make no difference at all, so why would we destroy our economy, people’s livelihoods and people’s jobs just to make a point?” she said.
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