Veronique de Rugy

Climate Change Denial Groups in Denial Veronique de Rugy

Veronique de Rugy is a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, a university-based research center that focuses primarily on economics. Officially, they now accept the science of climate change. However, in a since deleted article published in 2001, the Mercatus Center wrote that “the evidence regarding global warming and human contribution to it is mixed…if a slight warming does occur, historical evidence suggests it is likely to be beneficial. Its current research fellows do not believe that suggested solutions are necessary or will be effective.

In 2017, Veronique de Rugy, a senior research fellow, published an article titled “Calls for a Carbon Tax Are Misguided.” In this article, she wrote that people advocate for carbon taxes because they have something to gain financially from a carbon tax. She listed Elon Musk as an example, saying that he would benefit from a carbon tax as someone who develops electric cars and solar power.

In the same article, de Rugy also wrote that “there’s reason enough to be skeptical about the environmental claims. The debate over climate change is obviously complicated and extremely politically charged…It’s not unreasonable to question whether we should be basing policy on predictive climate models that have overestimated future temperatures for decades and are likely overly sensitive to changes in carbon dioxide.” According to de Rugy, not only are carbon taxes ineffective, but they might not be necessary, given the “negligible impact” of climate change.

In an article published in March 2021 on National Review, “The Fox Watching the Henhouse: Green Energy Addition,” she criticized the most recent plan to combat climate change, saying that it is “lots of signaling to the climate crowd, and it will likely offer fertile grounds for government failures and nasty unintended consequences.”

De Rugy is a senior fellow at the American Institute for Economic Research, as well as an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute, a prolific denier of climate change. Her articles appear in Reason magazine from the Reason Foundation, National Review Online, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post.