The Impact: Christopher Barnard on young conservatives and climate politics

Christopher Barnard is president of the American Conservation Coalition, which was founded in 2017 as a vehicle “to bring conservatives back to the table and to start talking about climate solutions in a way that they understand.”

ACC has built a grassroots network of over 30,000 young members across the country at over 100 chapters. It helped launch a conservative climate caucus with 85 Republican members of Congress in the House.

“And we’re just working with them to show that this doesn’t have to be a partisan issue,” Barnard said. “Caring about the planet is something that we all do. And we can figure out solutions together if we just come to the table and that’s what ACC exists to help foster.”

Here is more of my recent conversation with Barnard from “The Impact” on FinTech TV.

Jeff Gitterman: So I’m obviously covering climate change and all the issues around climate change a lot on the floor. Usually, most of the people I’m talking to are on one side of the aisle, and I don’t get a lot of time to talk to people that are on the other side of the aisle trying to push these issues. 

Christopher Barnard: I think it’s great that you’re having someone from the other side of the aisle have this conversation. Because from my perspective, as a young conservative who cares deeply about the earth, about the environment, about climate change, I believe it’s just so important that the only way we’re going to solve our climate problems is by having both sides of the aisle at the table talking solutions.

See the full interview on FinTech TV.

JG: I think when people think about climate change, they think that it’s one touch point, fossil fuels. And they get divided right there on that issue. So what is your wedge into meeting with these politicians, both the Senate and the House? What’s the initial interest in them wanting to talk? And where can you get some movement or where are you starting to see that you can get some movement on issues with them?

CB: You have to come back to first principles. When we go and we talk to Republicans, we tell them that being conservative means being a conservationist. Those are two sides of the same coin. If you think about the father of the conservation movement in America, Teddy Roosevelt, so many conservatives look up to him. And if we just go back to those, that philosophical approach to conservation and just taking care and stewarding the earth, that’s really a conservative principle. And so that opens the door for a lot of Republicans and a lot of conservatives because that resonates with them.

Then in terms of solutions, when it comes to talking about climate change, you’re right, it’s not just about fossil fuels, it’s also about a bunch of other things. And we found, really, I would say four main issues that opens the door really to talk about solutions.

One is nuclear energy. Lots of Republicans really think that nuclear energy is safe, it is reliable, and it is clean, and we’ve been unfairly holding it back in this country. We should be allowing ourselves to build nuclear plants again. Another is we talk about the role of farmers and ranchers in protecting the environment in sequestering emissions and giving them a seat at the climate table. Often, they’re vilified in these conversations. We think actually that they’re the front line of helping tackle climate change.

A third one would be the fact that we have to compete on the international stage with countries like China. Of course, a lot of conservatives, but really more and more Americans in general, are skeptical of China and their role in all of this. And then the fourth and final point I would say is we’re having a big conversation in D.C. right now about permitting reform and the role of government red tape in holding back energy production, especially clean-energy production.

JG: Right. Especially nuclear.

CB: Right. Well, nuclear, but also battery storage technologies, wind, solar, hydro. There’s all these clean technologies we need that we just literally can’t build right now. And getting government red tape out of the way, there’s nothing more conservative than that kind of approach to issues. So that’s another area in which we’re showing that actually conservative principles can help tackle this problem as well.

JG: Can you talk a little bit about what are the behind-the-scenes conversations that you’re having? I just think it’s good to educate the audience because I think a lot of people hear talking points and then run with those talking points. I’d love to hear from you what you hear behind the scenes about talking points.

CB: The way that we approach this and talk with Republicans behind the scenes is this is a huge electoral liability for them going forward. There’s some data that’s supposed to come out of the University of Colorado next month, actually, that’s going to show that one of the strongest predictors of independents voting for Democrats in the 2020 election over Republicans was caring about climate change. And that Republicans are losing nearly half a percentage point in electoral support each year because of this issue.

One of the things that the party and the conservative movement is having to reckon with is how to not make itself electorally irrelevant to an entire generation of voters while making sure that the base comes along. It’s a fine line to walk, but it’s a possible line to walk and we’re there to make that happen.

JG: So what I’m hearing from you is that the biggest touch point is votes, as it is always with someone running for office. Not everyone is always running for office in Congress. So I think sometimes when you’re up on the Hill, you get different dialogues depending on if they’re in the middle of a campaign or not, but —

CB: Or if they’re a senator versus a House member.

JG: Yes, definitely. But when you talk to people, I’m assuming you get to talk to young Republicans on college campuses. What are you telling them about how they can get involved and how they can have an impact on some of these issues?

CB: We’re on over 100 college campuses and in communities across the country and we hear everywhere. There’s barely a young Republican in this country that I’ve talked to that doesn’t care about environmental issues. And so they are really the next generation. They want to see leadership from Republicans on this.

A lot of climate activism that we see nowadays, that’s like the dirty image of throwing tomato soup at paintings or blocking traffic or things like that, that’s deeply unproductive and turns a lot of people off, especially conservatives. And so what we empower our young members to do is be a productive member of your community. Go clean up the local beach or plant trees in the local park, host an educational event with local city commissioners or whatever it might be.

The second thing is we tell them that their representatives need to hear from them. The only way, to your point, that people that are running for office are going to take us an issue seriously is if they hear it from their voters, especially their young voters.

I think with some of that data that I just mentioned about how they’re losing voters year in, year out, I think we’re going to start seeing more of a sea change of how the party looks at this because the electoral necessity is simply there.

JG: Like you’re saying, phone calls, letters to your congressmen really can have a huge impact on where they come down on an issue. It’s great to hear you echo that.

CB: Part of what we do is we take our young members to Capitol Hill to meet with Republican members of the Congress. And that’s also really important because sometimes you can have anonymous emails or anonymous calls or like there’s no face to it. But if you take 10 young conservatives from rural Iowa to meet with a member of Congress and that member of Congress is like, “Wow, these are young conservatives that care about this issue and they’re my constituents. I’m going to care about this now.”

JG: That’s amazing. And if there are people on campuses that see this interview, can they join? Are you open for membership? How do they find out about your organization?

CB: Just go to acc.eco, And our membership page will be at the top there and you can sign up and we’d love to have you. We have resources available for young people to learn more, to get involved, to host events, bring members of Congress and exciting speakers to their campus.

Read more: Can Washington state’s carbon cap survive the political backlash?