In this most inhospitable year for Republicans, Sen. John McCain touts his record on global warming as proof he is the anti-Bush.

Compared to President Bush, the soon-to-be Republican presidential nominee looks bright green. McCain acknowledges the science showing that global warming is the product of human activity. In May, he called climate change “the most important environmental challenge facing not only our nation, but the entire world.” Contrast that to Bush, who a month earlier spent an entire speech referring to climate change as a mere “issue.”

While Bush proposed non-binding incentives to wheedle corporations into taking necessary actions and blocked the Kyoto Protocol, McCain co-sponsored two bills to institute a cap-and-trade system limiting greenhouse gas emissions.

But accepting an overwhelming scientific consensus and offering a few legislative remedies doesn’t make McCain an environmentalist.

This month’s aborted Senate debate on the carbon-limiting Climate Security Act highlights McCain’s failings. Despite saying he would have voted to end the GOP filibuster that doomed the bill — a vote McCain didn’t cast because he never deigned to show up — he also refuses to support that bill, or any legislation, unless it blesses nuclear power. Two years ago, McCain’s obsession with all things nuclear helped kill his own bill on climate change.

At best, McCain’s approach to the environment can be called erratic.

He supports a cap-and-trade system, but his cap falls far short of the one recommended by climate scientists or imposed by the now-dead Climate Security Act.

And despite his pro-environment rhetoric, McCain also consistently votes against incentives for energy conservation and clean technology like wind and solar power.

The League of Conservation Voters has given McCain a 24 percent lifetime score out of a possible 100. Last year, McCain received a rating of zero. He got the goose egg for failing to show up for votes on 15 major pieces of environmental legislation. McCain says he was too busy campaigning, but candidates Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were equally preoccupied. During the same period, each of them missed only four key environmental votes in the Senate.

As an anti-government conservative, McCain favors less regulation of business (and that means polluters) — not more. He is likely to appoint regulators who refuse to regulate and nominate judges who believe that corporate interests trump all.

Then there’s the money. Since 1990, McCain has received more than $2 million from oil, coal, utility, auto, chemical and nuclear companies, according to the Center for American Progress. Nearly two-thirds of that — $1.2 million — has been donated in the last 18 months.

In his efforts to distance himself from Bush, John McCain still has a ways to go.

Diane Silver writes about climate change, human rights and politics. She blogs at www.hopeandpolitics.blogspot.com. She can be reached at pmproj [at] progressive [dot] org.