(Bloomberg) -- As Ronald Reagan’s secretary of state, GeorgeShultz faced off against Muammar Qaddafi, the Soviet Union andChinese communists.

His latest cause, though, is one few fellow Republicans support:fighting climate change.

Two years ago, Shultz was alarmed when a retired Navy admiralshowed him a video of vanishing Arctic sea ice and explained theimplications for global stability. Now, the former Cold Warriordrives an electric car, sports solar panels on his California roofand argues for government action against global warming atclean-energy conferences.

Living a life powered “on sunshine,” Shultz, at 93, has amessage for the doubters who dominate his own party: “The potentialresults are catastrophic,” he said in an interview. “So let’s takeout an insurance policy.”

As the United Nations gathers almost 200 governments in Limathis week to discuss new carbon limits for the planet, the U.S., aswith so many other issues, looks badly divided. While PresidentBarack Obama has pledged to accelerate reductions to greenhouse gasemissions by 2025 and is using his executive powers to put policiesin place, Republicans have retaken the Senate and stand firmlyopposed.

When Obama announced an agreement on carbon controls withChinese President Xi Jinping three weeks ago, incoming Senateleader Mitch McConnell dismissed it as an “unrealistic plan” thatwould boost electric rates and kill jobs. Yet, there are signs ofgrowing acceptance to the idea that climate change spurred by humanactions is a mounting problem.

Poll Support

Across the U.S., a series of weather anomalies -- from a recordWest Coast drought to Midwest flooding and Superstorm Sandy -- aregradually helping to shift public opinion on climate change,according to a string of recent polls. Two in three Americans nowbelieve global warming is real, according to an October survey of1,275 people by Yale and George Mason universities. That’s up from57% in January 2010.

“There’s a great middle in this country that basically agreesthat something needs to be done,” said James Brainard, theRepublican mayor of Carmel, Indiana, who served on a climatepreparedness task force organized by Obama. “They can see thatweather patterns are changing drastically.”

Activists have seized on severe weather and other geographicchanges to try to shape public opinion in the U.S., the world’sbiggest source of carbon emissions per capita. From weatheranomalies to the worsening problem of seawater fouling drinkingsupplies in Florida, public awareness is on the rise, said JenniferMorgan, director of climate programs at the World ResourcesInstitute in Washington, an advocacy group.

‘Penny Dropped’

“The penny has dropped in terms of the costs of climate change,”Morgan said.

Scientists, too, have made the connection, though they’re notalways as resolute in their findings. A trio of studies intoCalifornia’s three-year-old drought published in September in theBulletin of the American Meteorological Society, reachedconflicting conclusions about the role of climate change. The studywas part of a package of reports finding that nine of 16 globalweather disasters in 2013 bore the mark of human-stoked warming. Itincreased the odds of heat waves in Australia, China and Europe,heavy rains in the U.S. and a severe dry spell in New Zealand,scientists said.

Sea Levels

A year earlier, researchers in the same journal said Sandy’srampage through New York and New Jersey was exacerbated by risingsea levels brought on by a warmer climate. The origins of the stormitself, however, were too complex to tie to any one factor, thescientists wrote.

Munich Re, the world’s biggest reinsurer, said last month NorthAmerica is among continents that experienced the largest increasesin weather-related loss events since 1980.

Shultz, now a distinguished fellow at Stanford University, saidthe reality was driven home for him during a visit to theCalifornia campus by Gary Roughead, the U.S. Navy’s retired chiefof naval operations. Roughead shared a time-lapse video of theArctic ice cap shrinking over the last quarter-century.

“That certainly was an eye-opener,” Shultz said in an interviewlast week in San Francisco, where he spoke at an energy conference.The video showed what Shultz called “new oceans” being unlockedfrom the ice.

Opinion surveys show most Republicans disagree with taking stepsto control climate change. Only 37% of party members say theybelieve there’s solid evidence the earth is warming and just 25%view it as a major threat to the U.S., the Pew Research Center saidin a September report. That compares to 61% of all Americans in thesame poll who said the globe is warming and 48% who see it as athreat.

Climate Hoax

Republican leaders reflect that skepticism. The party woncontrol of both houses of Congress last month by running againstObama’s policies, including new rules from the EnvironmentalProtection Agency on power plant pollution.

James Inhofe, an Oklahoma Republican set to lead the Senateenvironment committee, has written a book dismissing climatescience as a hoax. After last month’s election results, Inhofeshowed no sign of giving ground.

“The American people spoke against the president’s climatepolicies in this last election,” Inhofe said on Nov. 12. “They wantaffordable energy and more economic opportunity, both of which arebeing diminished by overbearing EPA mandates.”

Belief in global warming has waxed and waned over the years,said Anthony Leiserowitz, director of the Yale Project on ClimateChange Communication.

Kyoto Protocol

Democrats and Republicans held roughly the same views on thetopic until 1997, when then-Vice President Al Gore signed the KyotoProtocol on behalf of the U.S., Leiserowitz said. The agreement,which the U.S. never ratified, called on wealthy countries to cutemissions while giving a pass to developing nations like China andIndia.

“That’s the moment when the two parties really start separatingfrom one another, where Democrats become increasingly convincedit’s a serious problem and Republicans are increasingly convincedit’s not happening,” Leiserowitz said in an interview. Since then,it’s become “one of the most polarized issues in America.”

He raises the possibility global warming could follow the sametrajectory as same-sex marriage, another issue that divided votersfor years before public opinion shifted in favor.

Gay marriage rapidly gained support in the U.S. as a determined“social movement” racked up legal victories, he said. The questionfor climate policies will be whether there is “going to be astrong, powerful set of voices demanding this rule, as opposed tothe set of voices that are actively resisting?”

Not Abstract

Republicans who buck the climate view within their party saythey’re motivated by signs that the greenhouse effect is no longeran abstract threat.

Brainard, the Indiana mayor, points to increasingly heavyrainstorms that have overwhelmed the storm-sewer system in Carmel,a fast-growing town of 80,000 people north of Indianapolis. Thetown has had to spend millions to upgrade the system, he said in atelephone interview.

John Thune of South Dakota, the U.S. Senate’s third-rankingRepublican, told Fox News on Nov. 16 that climate change ishappening, in part due to human activity. “The question,” he said,“is what are we going to do about it and at what cost?”

Mark McKinnon, a former media adviser to President George W.Bush, sees “incremental evolution” on the issue within theRepublican party. “Rather than denying the science, many are simplysaying they are not scientists,” he said. “On this issue, that’sactually progress.”

Oil Embargo

Shultz said he witnessed the havoc wrought by the 1973 MiddleEast oil embargo when he was treasury secretary for PresidentRichard Nixon. The crisis bolstered his concerns about U.S.reliance on foreign oil and the Treasury Department began fundingresearch into alternative energy sources. Yet the money dried upsoon after the embargo lifted and oil prices dropped.

The concerns make for a natural alliance between national-security hawks concerned about energy independence and climateactivists who want to reduce heat-trapping pollution from fossilfuels, Shultz said.

In June, he joined Maine Senator Olympia Snowe, a Republican, insigning onto a bipartisan report that said a warmer climate couldcause hundreds of billions of dollars in economic losses. HankPaulson, George W. Bush’s former treasury secretary, was anothersignatory.

‘Big Melts’

If he’s a renegade within his party, it won’t be for long,according to Shultz.

“Reality is going to do a lot,” he said. “It will become moreand more evident that there are big melts all over the world thatare going to cause water problems and other problems. People willhave to notice.”

Shultz recalled the Montreal Protocol he helped Ronald Reaganbroker in the 1980s to reduce chemicals that were eroding theozone. There were skeptics then, too, “but we got them to agreethat we should take out an insurance policy,” he said. “There wereconsequences, we could see the consequences.”

Shultz, a former University of Chicago economics professor,supports a system to reduce emissions through a revenue neutral taxon fossil fuels that would recycle the money collected back tocitizens in the form of a carbon dividend check.

The consequences of not acting could affect more than just theenvironment, he said. It could involve national security as well,creating new political, health and social threats globally,according to Shultz.

‘New Diseases’

“For example, we’ve been worried about communicable diseases,right?” he said. “Now we are going to have some new diseases tocope with. That’s just one example. There are all kinds.”

Shultz tools around the Stanford campus in a scarlet plug- inNissan Leaf, bought around the same time he saw the Navy video. Headded solar panels on his home on the Stanford campus about sixyears ago. He figures he’s already made his money back in lowerenergy bills.

The savings were only part of the attraction. Asked about hisclean-energy conversion, the ex-statesman said he also wanted tosend a message: “I thought I should walk the talk,” he said.

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