Brian Beutler is suspicious of claims that Republicans may be coming around on climate change, calling improvements in GOP positions “small steps,” that are “too small to get exercised about.” Not very charitable, and yet far too charitable given the actual statements of leading Republican candidates.

Just have a look at Giuliani’s comments in the Times today:

On the campaign trail, Mr. Giuliani has said, “I do believe there’s global warming,” but in a speech on energy in the summer in Waterloo, Iowa, he had hardly a word about the environment. Instead, he focused on tapping domestic sources of energy, including coal, which is considered a major contributor to global warming.

“Ethanol, biodiesel, clean coal, nuclear power, more refineries, conservation,” Mr. Giuliani said. “There’s no one single solution. But each one of these has to be expanded 10 percent, 15 percent, 20 percent.

“America has more coal reserves than Saudi Arabia has oil reserves. Aren’t we safer and better off relying on our own coal reserves than on a part of the world that is a threat to us?”

And here’s Romney, who’s running a close second in the GOP horse race:

“That is much broader than one form of fuel like ethanol,” Mr. Romney said. “I believe we have to be developing more energy sources ourselves, which would include offshore drilling and drilling in ANWR, nuclear power, biodiesel, biofuel, ethanol, cellulosic ethanol, probably liquefied coal. We have enormous supplies of coal.”

The two men with the best shot at the Republican presidential nomination are as firmly committed to the use of fossil fuels as ever; both actually show a real desire to increase our dependence on coal. This is essentially incompatible with reductions in carbon emissions. No person with serious concerns about the effects of warming would adopt such a position.

The Republican Party is going to stick to the wrong side of this issue until it’s politically suicidal to continue to do so, and maybe past that point. That’s pretty much been their MO for the past few decades, so why change now?