Environmental Polling Roundup – December 20, 2024
Headlines
Gallup – Four in ten Americans say that they worry “a great deal” about global warming or climate change, and concerns are particularly high among Black and Hispanic Americans [Article]
Yale + Potential Energy Coalition – Messages focused on urgency for the next generation, polluter accountability, and climate progress all boost support for climate action across countries, with an “Urgency and Generational” message having the largest impact [Release, Published Paper]
[AZ] American Lung Association – Arizona voters widely agree that climate change is affecting them now, and want state policymakers to do more about it – including transitioning more to solar and wind power [Release, Memo, Topline]
[Farmers] National Wildlife Federation – The overwhelming majority of U.S. farmers want to increase funding for USDA’s voluntary conservation programs [Release]
Key Takeaways
- Partisanship remains the biggest predictor of Americans’ climate concerns, but there are also major demographic differences that partisanship doesn’t account for. A new analysis by Gallup finds that Americans’ climate concerns are much more linked to their partisanship than to any particular demographic factor, though there are some notable demographic differences that can’t be explained by partisanship alone. In particular, women and Hispanic Americans show considerably more concern about climate change than would be predicted just by their partisan leanings.
- Messaging focused on future generations continues to be particularly effective at increasing support for climate action. Following up on their “Later is Too Late” report from last year, researchers at the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication (YPCC) and the Potential Energy Coalition find that multiple messages – including an “Urgency and Generational Message” that focuses on the impacts of climate change now and for future generations, a “Polluter Accountability” message that emphasizes responsibility on the part of polluting corporations, and a “Climate Progress” message that focuses on solutions to the problem – significantly increase support for climate action among an audience drawn from 23 countries. The “Urgency and Generational” message performed as the strongest overall and was also the only one of these messages to have a statistically significant impact on Americans’ support for climate action.
Good Data Points to Highlight
- [AZ] By a 77%-23% margin, Arizona voters say that the state should continue rather than repeal policies that encourage the transition to clean energy like wind and solar [American Lung Association]
- [AZ] 77% of Arizona voters agree that using more clean energy like wind and solar would create quality jobs and strengthen Arizona’s economy [American Lung Association]
- [AZ] 71% of Arizona voters agree that using more clean energy like wind and solar would save Arizona families money [American Lung Association]
- [AZ] 70% of Arizona voters agree that climate change is already having a serious impact on their part of the country [American Lung Association]
- [Farmers] 75% of U.S. agricultural producers support increasing long-term funding for USDA’s voluntary conservation programs [National Wildlife Federation]
Full Roundup
Gallup – Four in ten Americans say that they worry “a great deal” about global warming or climate change, and concerns are particularly high among Black and Hispanic Americans [Article]
Americans’ climate concerns diverge widely by race and gender, as well as by education and age.
Gallup found in March that around three in five Americans (62%) worry at least “a fair amount” about global warming or climate change, including four in ten (42%) who worry “a great deal” about the issue.
What’s new in this article is that Gallup combined data on this and other questions across their March 2023 and March 2024 surveys, allowing for more in-depth analysis of climate attitudes within specific population segments.
This new analysis reveals large differences in concern across several demographic variables, in addition to partisanship.
Women, for example, are 15 points more likely to say that they worry at least “a fair amount” about global warming or climate change (69%) than men (54%).
Black Americans (80%) and Hispanic Americans (80%) show the greatest concerns of any demographic segment, and they are both 26 points more likely to say that they worry at least “a fair amount” about the issue than White Americans (54%).
Concerns also tend to be higher the more formal education that people have received, as Americans with postgraduate degrees (71%) are the most likely to say that they worry about climate change at least “a fair amount.” By comparison, 60% of Americans without any college education and 55% of Americans with some college education say that they worry at least “a fair amount” about climate change.
Differences across age groups are actually relatively smaller than for other demographic categories. Americans aged 18-29 are slightly more likely to say that they worry at least “a fair amount” about climate change (68%) than those aged 30-49 (62%), who are in turn express slightly more concern about the issue than Americans aged 50-64 (57%) or 65%+ (58%).
Partisanship continues to be by far the biggest predictor of Americans’ climate concerns. Virtually all Democrats (90%) say that they worry at least “a fair amount” about climate change, compared to around two-thirds of independents (64%) and just 28% of Republicans.
Still, partisanship alone can’t account for the demographic differences that Gallup finds in Americans’ climate attitudes. The gender gap in climate concern, for example, is far larger than the gender gap in party identification. And while Black Americans are about equally likely to express concern about climate change as they are to identify with the Democratic Party, Hispanic Americans’ climate concern is far higher than their Democratic identification.
Yale + Potential Energy Coalition – Messages focused on urgency for the next generation, polluter accountability, and climate progress all boost support for climate action across countries, with an “Urgency and Generational” message having the largest impact [Release, Published Paper]
Several different messages significantly increase support for climate action internationally. In a newly published paper in Global Environmental Change, researchers at the Yale Program for Climate Change Communication (YPCCC) and Potential Energy Coalition compared the effects of three different pro-climate messages on respondents’ support for climate action.
Encouragingly, all three messages that they analyzed – including an “Urgency and Generational Message” that focused on the impacts of climate change now and for future generations, a “Polluter Accountability” message that emphasized fairness and responsibility on the part of polluting corporations, and a “Climate Progress” message that focused on solutions to the problem, all had a statistically significant positive effect in increasing support for climate action within the tested audience (57,968 participants across 23 countries).
An “Urgency and Generational Message” is the most persuasive, particularly within the United States. While all three messages had a positive effect, the impact was strongest for the “Urgency and Generational” message.
Americans in particular were more likely to be moved by this message than the other tested messages, as the “Urgency and Generational” message was the only one with a statistically significant positive effect among U.S. respondents.
The full text of the “Urgency and Generational” message is as follows:
“You don’t have to be a scientist to see how our climate has changed.
Extreme weather events, like extreme heat waves, floods, hurricanes, wildfires, and drought, are becoming more frequent and more severe. The last eight years were the hottest ever recorded in human history.
Our overheating planet is already putting lives and livelihoods at risk. It’s hurting our farmers, over-polluting our cities, reducing our water supply, and costing us billions in damage from extreme weather.
Most importantly, it’s putting our children’s futures at risk. It’s our responsibility to leave behind a safe, livable world for future generations.
If we don’t stop polluting, it will only get worse. Carbon pollution stays in the atmosphere for thousands of years, so the effects cannot be reversed.
Yet, today, the world continues to emit more heat-trapping carbon pollution than ever. It’s cooking the planet.
We need immediate action on climate change, because later is too late.”
There is no evidence of the tested pro-climate arguments backfiring with particular audiences. The study found no indication of a “backfire effect” (i.e., decreasing support for climate action) for any of the messages among any major audience subgroups.
In fact, the persuasive power of the messages appears to have been slightly stronger among audiences from the political right – likely because rightward-leaning respondents started with lower baseline support for climate action and therefore had more room to increase support.
[AZ] American Lung Association – Arizona voters widely agree that climate change is affecting them now, and want state policymakers to do more about it – including transitioning more to solar and wind power [Release, Memo, Topline]
Arizona voters see climate change as a here-and-now issue. More than two-thirds of Arizonans (70%) agree that climate change is “already having a serious impact on [their] part of the country,” and half (51%) describe climate change as either a “crisis” or “very serious problem.”
Meanwhile, less than one-quarter of Arizonans (23%) dismiss climate change as “not that serious a problem” or “not a problem.”
Support for climate action is bipartisan. Nearly two-thirds of Arizona voters (66%) agree that “Arizona policymakers need to do more to combat climate change.” This includes a plurality of Republicans, who are four points more likely to agree than disagree with this assertion.
Solar and wind rank far ahead of fossil fuels as Arizonans’ preferred energy sources. Around three-quarters of Arizona voters (74%) say that the state should use more solar power, and most (56%) also say that the state should use more wind power.
Meanwhile, less than three in ten (28%) say that the state should use more “natural gas” (which drops to 12% when it’s described as “methane gas”) and only small percentages want the state to use more oil (15%) or coal (10%).
Arizona voters also have overwhelmingly positive opinions of wind and solar energy companies (69% favorable / 16% unfavorable), while they are split in their impressions of oil and gas companies (43% favorable / 44% unfavorable) and have decidedly negative opinions of “oil and gas CEOs” (23% favorable / 52% unfavorable).
In addition to the benefits for air quality and health, Arizona voters widely agree that using more clean energy will help the economy and families’ finances. Majorities of Arizonans say that continuing policies that encourage a transition to clean energy like wind and solar will have a positive impact on each of the following:
- Air quality in Arizona (78% positive / 9% negative)
- Future generations of Arizonans (77% positive / 14% negative)
- The health of families like yours (74% positive / 11% negative)
- Arizona seniors and children (71% positive / 15% negative)
- Climate change (71% positive / 10% negative)
- The economy and jobs in Arizona (71% positive / 17% negative)
- Your family (70% positive / 12% negative)
- The finances of families like yours (59% positive / 21% negative)
Arizonans see the water-saving potential of clean energy as a strong rationale for it. Three-quarters of Arizona voters (77%) agree with the following statement, including 44% who agree “strongly”:
“As Arizona’s water resources become scarcer, we need to depend more on wind and solar power sources that require less water and pollute less.”
While we haven’t seen much research that tests the persuasiveness of water conservation as a rationale for the clean energy transition, this finding demonstrates clear potential for that kind of messaging to resonate – particularly in water-conscious areas like Arizona and other Western states.
[Farmers] National Wildlife Federation – The overwhelming majority of U.S. farmers want to increase funding for USDA’s voluntary conservation programs [Release]
There’s a clear demand from farmers to expand climate-smart agriculture programs. NWF has released the following as “preliminary results” from a recent survey of more than 500 farmers nationwide:
- “75% of producers surveyed in a nationwide poll of farmers and ranchers said they support an increase in long-term funding for USDA’s voluntary conservation programs. Only 5% of farmers disagreed.
- Approximately 90% of producers surveyed either supported or were neutral on Congress moving the remaining, unspent climate-smart agriculture funds permanently into Farm Bill conservation programs to provide additional long-term funding to help farmers and ranchers adopt climate-smart agriculture conservation practices now and in the future. 64% of producers surveyed either agreed or strongly agreed.
- 74% of producers surveyed said that they think USDA conservation program payments are important in helping producers improve their bottom line, reduce input costs, and modernize their operations.
- Producers surveyed cited soil health, improved yield, and cost savings on inputs as the most valuable elements of participating in climate-smart agriculture programs.
- More than half (64%) of producers disagree when asked if Congress should take away conservation money to use it for other purposes.”
Related Resources
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