PHOENIX — Gov. Doug Ducey has come around to what a majority of Arizonans believe: human activity is affecting the climate.
“I imagine it’s a combination of things,” the Republican governor said Friday when asked about the issue by Capitol Media Services.
Ducey said it only makes sense that people, and what they do, are having an impact. “Humans are part of the earth, the environment and the ecosystem,” he said.
The acknowledgment regarding climate changes comes four years after Ducey, just months after being sworn into office, had a decidedly different take.
Back then, after being briefed by experts, Ducey said he was convinced that the climate is in fact changing. “It’s going to get warmer here,” he said.
“What I am skeptical about is what human activity has to do with it,” he said at the time.
And now?
“The skepticism isn’t so much around causes,” he said Friday. “It’s around suggested remedies.”
Ducey’s comments come just as a statewide survey of 600 likely voters was released by OH Predictive Insights.
Pollster Mike Noble found that 72% of those asked believe the climate is changing, with just 20% disagreeing. Among Republicans, the figure for those who say there is change was 55%.
Noble also found that 62% of those in the survey said climate change is caused by human activity.
While Ducey’s conclusion that what humans do affects the climate puts him with the majority, it puts him out of step with members of his own Republican Party.
In Noble’s survey, 34% of those registered with the GOP see a link between human activity and climate change, versus 85% of Democrats and 73% of political independents.
The issue is particularly important here, Ducey said.
“Nobody knows better than the governor of a state like Arizona, that has such an arid climate and has had to make so many plans and sacrifices to have the rich and abundant water resources that we have, that we have to pay attention to our environment,” he said.
As for taking specific actions, Ducey said Arizona meets or exceeds what’s required under federal law. “You really are talking about a discussion that you’re going to have nationally,” he said.
And he said it can’t only be this country moving in that direction. “If the United States decides to do something, other nations that are large emitters like India and China have to come along,” he said.
There are things that states can and have done.
California, in particular, has its own set of vehicle emission standards which are tougher than those required under federal law. Its newest proposals, negotiated with several automobile manufacturers, are designed to increase fuel efficiency and reduce emissions, including of greenhouse gases.
Asked about the California proposals, Ducey said they’re not necessary here.
“I think we can have a balance in these reforms,” he said. “I think you can have a growing economy and an improving environment. That’s what we’re having in Arizona versus what California’s having, which is a mass exodus.”
Still, Ducey did not entirely dismiss the idea of changing emissions standards. “We should continually improve,” he said.
The telephonic survey of likely voters was conducted last month using a combination of live interviews and automated responses. It has a potential margin of error of 4%.
