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Among the crowded field of more than a dozen Republican candidates, several say the phenomenon is fiction
With the world's eyes on next year's U.S. election of a president who will help determine the nation's role in combating climate change, discussion of the issue has been dramatically absent in the candidates' campaigns so far, experts say.
Democrats Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders have said they believe climate change is real, manmade and significant, said experts on a Columbia University Earth Institute panel. Their campaign websites have sections dedicated to the issue.
But among the crowded field of more than a dozen Republican candidates, several say the phenomenon is fiction or have voiced doubt over how much human activity has contributed, they said.
"The issue in general hasn't been put on the political agenda ... as serious as it is," said Steven Cohen, executive director of the Earth Institute, at the panel, held late on Thursday.
But he said it could come up when the Democratic and Republican party nominees debate later in the election cycle, he said.
Americans choose their next president in November 2016. Current President Barack Obama, who by law could not seek a third term, leaves office in January 2017.
The Republicans most recently held a debate earlier this week, when the issue of climate change never arose, panelists noted.
"I'm still waiting for the climate change question," said NBC News political director Chuck Todd.
William Eimicke, a professor at Columbia's School of International and Public Affairs, said the issue is looming, despite the low-key treatment in the campaigns.
"Someone ... is going to have to put this on the agenda and argue for it aggressively," he said. "That's about leadership from the president."
In August, President Obama unveiled the administration's plan to slash carbon emissions from U.S. power plants.
The regulation requires the power sector to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 32 percent from 2005 levels by 2030 and is meant as a strong signal ahead of global climate talks that begin next month in Paris.
Combating climate change was one of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals, or SDGs, adopted last month by the U.N. member nations as an agenda to be implemented over the next 15 years.
(Reporting by Sebastien Malo, Editing by Ellen Wulfhorst. Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women's rights, trafficking, corruption and climate change. Visit www.trust.org)
((Sebastien.Malo@thomsonreuters.com;))
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