Red states will be hit hardest by climate change – but Republicans don’t care

In America’s screwy political system in the post-truth era, Republican politicians typically rail against climate spending and even climate science, writes David Callaway

The culture wars era we are leaving behind will soon be viewed as a ridiculous time of apathy and stagnation as the political debate shifts to who gets saved and who doesn’t (Getty Images/iStockphoto)

The climate world celebrated the passage of President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act this week as the largest US investment to fight global warming in history became law, triggering $369bn (£312bn) in new spending on clean energy strategies.

But Republican opposition to the law – not one politician in either chamber of Congress voted for it – stood out as a singular, petulant, flip off to Mother Nature just as she begins to exert the full force of her environmental devastation. Much of it in their red states.

Even as Biden signed the bill into law, the federal government was imposing drastic water cuts in the American west and Mexico from the depleted Colorado River, targeting traditional red states Arizona and Nevada (despite their recent election record of voting for the Democrats).