‘We fix climate change by fixing the economics’: Bob Inglis delivers climate talk at UGA

Republican environmental activist and former U.S. Rep. Bob Inglis was not always the climate-conscious man he is today. In fact, he used to be a climate change denier.

At a talk held by the University of Georgia’s Sustainable Business and Economics Societies on Wednesday, Oct. 29, Inglis discussed his “three step metamorphosis” that shifted his position on climate change from skeptic to believer, leading him to promote climate-based policy and become founder and executive director of republicEn, a conservative organization encouraging climate leadership.

While running for his second term as South Carolina’s 4th Congressional District Rep. in 2004, his son was what initially drew his attention to the environment.

“[My son] came to me and said, Dad, I’ll vote for you, but you’re going to clean up your act on the environment,” Inglis said.

The next two steps in his “metamorphasis” — trips to Antarctica and the Great Barrier Reef during his membership in the House Science and Technology Committee — solidified to him that he needed to change his views on the climate. After seeing ice core drilling practices and the beauty of the Barrier Reef while snorkeling with an Australian climate scientist, Inglis introduced the “Raise Wages, Cut Carbon Act” of 2009, which proposed a carbon tax on emissions and a corresponding reduction in social security payroll taxes.

Although the act did not pass into law, Inglis is still a strong believer in revenue-neutral carbon taxes. In simple terms, this tax would charge companies for carbon emissions at specific rates and would gradually increase over time to encourage companies to find cleaner business methods.

He also proposed lowering payroll taxes so low-income workers are not disproportionately affected by the increased costs of goods and energy. According to Inglis, the Congressional Budget Office found that the bottom 70% of Americans would be better off by reducing the payroll tax and implementing the carbon tax.

“I think the [revenue-neutral carbon tax] is a good idea because it helps businesses to lower their carbon emissions while also accounting for the negative repercussions that come along with that,” Deveena Singh, a sophomore environmental economics and management major, said after listening to Inglis’ talk. “People go where the money goes, and no one is going to be incentivised to care about the environment if it costs them money.”

Inglis’ passion for the environment led him to found republicEn, a conservative climate organization seeking to reach politically conservative individuals and “internalize negative externalities”, or incorporate external costs and benefits into decision-making processes, which, in this case, relate to environmental emissions caused by polluters. The organization aims to bridge the political left and right together to adopt market-oriented climate solutions, such as the revenue-neutral carbon tax.

“We fix climate change by fixing the economics,” Inglis said.

Inglis served in the U.S. Congress representing Greenville-Spartanburg, South Carolina, from 1993 to 1998 and again from 2005 to 2011. He also served as a resident fellow at Harvard University’s Institute of Politics in 2011, a visiting energy fellow at Duke University’s Nicholas School of the Environment in 2012 and as a resident fellow at the University of Chicago’s Institute of Politics in 2014.