Green money is big loser in US elections

The first big money drive to inject climate change into US elections fell flat this week as a green-minded billionaire's support for Democrats was neutralised by the conservative Koch brothers and voter dissatisfaction with President Barack Obama.

In a striking defeat, Tom Steyer, a former hedge fund manager, spent at least $57m to promote action on climate change but saw his ambitions scuttled by voters' economic unease and a fossil fuel industry that blamed stagnant wages on environmental red tape.

The result underlines a challenge faced by climate-friendly politicians in other countries where citizens, like the majority of Americans, say they support action on climate change, but rank it far below their immediate economic interests as a voting priority.

Mr Steyer's opponents did not hesitate to crow. "His effort is a failure in every respect, except for growing his own profile through his self-promoting tactics," said Tim Phillips, head of Americans For Prosperity, a group backed by the billionaire donors Charles and David Koch.

Mr Steyer is the newest addition to the set of plutocrats whose money is flooding US politics and the biggest single disclosed donor this year, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. His group - NextGen Climate Action - led a pack of greens aiming to make climate change denial politically "radioactive" and elect Democrats who would promote renewable energy.

But their candidates were routed in Tuesday's midterm elections. The Republican party seized control of the Senate, bolstering its ranks with young conservatives who earned scorn from the left on the campaign trail by saying they could not render judgment on climate change because they were not scientists.

Chris Lehane, Mr Steyer's chief political strategist, said NextGen is not giving up on its fight, which will go on for many years. But he deplored the new intake of lawmakers. "It's the Republican version of the Village People. You've got all sorts of people with all sorts of extreme views from all parts of the country."

Rubbing salt into the wound, the Republican victory is likely to elevate Jim Inhofe, a veteran lawmaker and strident climate change sceptic, to the chairmanship of the Senate's environment committee.

Green groups that threw money behind losing Democrats said voter frustration with the president meant they were always fighting an uphill battle. But that did not alleviate their despondency. "It did not go well," said Michael Brune, executive director of the Sierra Club.

"We had a lot of climate champions who we have counted on over the years who are now out of office, and we have others elected who have strong Tea Party affiliations and have been supported by the Koch brothers. You can't help but be dismayed by that."

Mr Steyer set out to make himself a counterweight to the Kochs, who oversee a political network that spent around $300m in 2014. But the money NextGen spent on campaign advertising for identifiable candidates - $18m - achieved a success rate of just 32 per cent, according to the Sunlight Foundation, a watchdog that calculates returns on investment for political groups.

NextGen's money did not prevent two of its four Senate candidates from losing in Colorado and Iowa. Two of its three candidates for governor lost in Florida and Maine and the third, in Pennsylvania, won a race that was never close.

Sunlight did not calculate a figure for Koch-affiliated groups, but it said the US Chamber of Commerce - a Republican-leaning business lobby that has attacked Mr Obama's climate change policies - was 80 per cent successful.

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"Americans are saying those policies are a key reason why the economy is stuttering, why we are not getting the jobs we really want," he said. "That should be the most troubling thing for Mr Steyer."

Political scientists were not so sure. Carl Tobias at the University of Richmond said the array of subjects that concern voters made it impossible to establish a cause-effect link between a single issue, such as climate change, and election results.

Dan Weiss, senior vice-president for campaigns at the League of Conservation Voters, said: "Anti-environment candidates won their races despite their position against climate action, not because of it." His group spent close to $30m and lost in three of the five Senate races it joined.

Mr Lehane said NextGen is not giving up and has already laid the groundwork for the future with three achievements this year. It has showed Democrats how to use climate "on offence"; it has forced Republicans to address local issues such as rising sea levels in Florida; and it has recruited 300,000 activists ready to work on the 2016 elections.

The climate battle, he says, is comparable to other long-running struggles for social change. "If Martin Luther King woke up one day and said 'I have a dream' and then was told that dream's not going to happen and said 'OK, I give up, I'm going home' - that's not how it works."

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