The 2012 Republican presidential field was largely made up of climate skeptics. As the 2016 field shapes up, that's still the case.
Many of the would-be 2016 contenders will acknowledge that the climate is changing but publicly question the extent to which man-made greenhouse-gas emissions are responsible—if at all. There's strong opposition in the field to President Obama's EPA regulations on power plants, a central pillar of his second-term agenda.
"The federal government has no business attempting to massively reorder the global economy, resulting in policies that kill jobs and keep people from rising out of poverty, all in the name of a theory that can't be proven or disproven," Republican Sen. Ted Cruz from Texas told National Journal.
Yet there are fault lines emerging. Some prominent Republicans eyeing the 2016 race agree there's at least some link between human activity and climate change (see our chart on the fledgling 2016 field here).
Before he dropped out of the 2016 race, Mitt Romney declared himself to be "one of those Republicans who thinks we are getting warmer and that we contribute to that," a rebuke of his 2012 position. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie has touted efforts to cut carbon emissions. And the GOP-led Senate voted 98 to 1 last month in favor of a resolution declaring that "climate change is real and not a hoax."