Environmental Polling Roundup – July 12, 2024
HEADLINES
Pew – Americans continue to widely support renewables over fossil fuels, despite growing partisan divides [Website, Full Report, Topline]
The Economist + YouGov – Most Americans now say that they’ve felt the effects of climate change [Topline + Crosstabs]
Heatmap – Most Americans say that they’re more likely to support a candidate for president whose platform includes climate-friendly policies, as Americans overwhelmingly support policies to expand clean energy, increase energy efficiency, and tax polluters [Article]
Climate Nexus – Voters recognize methane as a pollutant and support policies to address methane pollution, but most don’t associate it with the oil and gas industry [Release, Topline]
Yale + GMU – Longitudinal data indicates that many Americans are changing their attitudes about global warming over time, and shifts are mostly in the direction of greater concern about the problem [Article]
KEY TAKEAWAYS
- Solar and wind remain Americans’ favorite energy sources. Pew finds that large majorities of Americans support expanding solar (78%) and wind power (72%), despite recent dips in support as attitudes about these energy sources have become more politically polarized. Meanwhile, nuclear is the only other energy source in Pew’s survey that earns outright majority support and half or fewer support expanding fossil fuels through offshore drilling for oil and gas, fracking for oil and gas, or coal mining.
- Pro-climate policies have clear political upside. Heatmap finds that most Americans say that they’re more likely to vote for a candidate for president whose platform includes subsidies for climate-friendly purchases such as EVs, heat pumps, and home solar panels. Other climate and clean energy policies that have been championed by President Biden – including expanding solar and wind energy and incentivizing energy efficiency for homes and businesses – also earn overwhelming majority support in their survey.
GOOD DATA POINTS TO HIGHLIGHT
- [Clean Energy Transition] By a 64%-35% margin, Americans say that the country should prioritize expanding wind, solar, and hydrogen production over expanding exploration and production of oil, coal and natural gas [Pew]
- [Clean Energy Transition] 78% of Americans support building more solar panel farms in the U.S. [Pew]
- [Clean Energy Transition] 72% of Americans support building more wind turbine farms in the U.S. [Pew]
- [Climate Change] 59% of Americans recognize that the world’s climate is changing as a result of human activity [The Economist + YouGov]
- [Climate Change] 53% of Americans say that they have personally felt the effects of climate change [The Economist + YouGov]
- [Climate Change + Elections] 60% of Americans are more likely to vote for a candidate for president who includes subsidies for ‘green purchases’, such as EVs, heat pumps, and home solar panels, in their climate change platform [Heatmap]
FULL ROUNDUP
Pew – Americans continue to widely support renewables over fossil fuels, despite growing partisan divides [Website, Full Report, Topline]
Americans widely agree that the country should prioritize renewables over fossil fuels. Polls consistently show that Americans favor clean energy sources over fossil fuels to meet the country’s energy needs.
Here, Pew finds that 64% of Americans say that the country’s priority should be to “expand wind, solar and hydrogen power” while 35% say that the country’s priority should be to “expand exploration and production of oil, coal, and natural gas.”
This preference for renewables has been stable in Pew’s tracking, though the margin by which Americans prefer renewables over fossil fuels has been trending down in their recent surveys. Around two-thirds (64%-67%) have said that the country should prioritize renewables the last three times that Pew has asked this question going back to mid-2022, while more than seven in ten (71%-79%) prioritized renewables in Pew surveys conducted between 2019 and 2021.
Solar and wind remain Americans’ favorite energy sources. Large majorities of Americans say that they favor more solar panel farms (78%) and more wind turbine farms (72%) in the United States.
Meanwhile, Americans are much more divided about whether the U.S. should expand other sources of energy – such as nuclear power plants (56% favor / 41% oppose), offshore oil and gas drilling in U.S. waters (48% favor / 49% oppose), hydraulic fracking for oil and gas (44% favor / 53% oppose), and coal mining (39% favor / 58% oppose).
Republicans have been souring on renewables throughout Biden’s presidency, but most still support solar and wind expansion. There is a deep partisan split over the types of energy sources that the U.S. should prioritize, with Democrats preferring renewables over fossil fuels by an 87%-12% margin and Republicans favoring fossil fuels over renewables by a 61%-38% margin.
Younger Republicans hold distinctly different views than the rest of their party on this point, however, as 67% of Republicans aged 18-29 say that the country should prioritize renewables over fossil fuels.
Republicans were much more likely to support the clean energy transition before Biden came to office: Pew found that 65% of Republicans said that they wanted the country to prioritize renewables in May 2020, but this percentage had dropped to 47% by April 2021 and has continued to trend downward ever since.
And while majorities of Republicans still say that they support expanding solar (64%) and wind (56%), Republican support for expanding solar power has dropped by 20 points since 2020 (from 84% to 64%) and Republican support for expanding wind power has dropped by 19 points since 2020 (from 75% to 56%).
Americans remain mixed on the EV transition, and a declining share say that they’re interested in purchasing an EV themselves. Four in ten Americans (40%) say that they favor rules that would make electric vehicles at least half of all new cars and trucks sold in the U.S. by 2032, with 58% opposed to the idea.
Democrats (64%) are four times as likely as Republicans (16%) to support this transition to electric vehicles.
Pew also finds that interest in EVs has dipped this year: around three in ten (29%) say that they are at least “somewhat” likely to seriously consider an EV the next time that they purchase a vehicle, down from 38% in June 2023.
The Economist + YouGov – Most Americans now say that they’ve felt the effects of climate change [Topline + Crosstabs]
Most Americans recognize human-caused climate change, and very few deny that the climate is changing at all. Nearly three in five Americans (59%) agree that the world’s climate is changing “as a result of human activity,” while about one in five (22%) say that the world’s climate is changing for reasons other than human activity.
Meanwhile, less than one in ten (8%) deny that the world’s climate is changing.
Amid severe heat waves, most Americans now say that they’ve personally been impacted by climate change. Just over half of Americans (53%) say that they’ve personally been impacted by climate change in their own lives.
This figure tends to hover around 50%, and polling in recent years has also shown a seasonal pattern as Americans are more likely to say that they’ve personally been affected by climate change when the weather is hotter.
Americans would much rather see more climate action than less. Consistent with Americans’ clear preference for candidates that support climate action, 50% say that the country should do more to address climate change while only 14% say that the country should do less.
Heatmap – Most Americans say that they’re more likely to support a candidate for president whose platform includes climate-friendly policies, as Americans overwhelmingly support policies to expand clean energy, increase energy efficiency, and tax polluters [Article]
Many climate-friendly policies attract overwhelming support. Heatmap finds commanding levels of support for several policies that would address climate change through clean energy development and energy efficiency.
Underlining the popularity of wind and solar, around four in five support making it easier to build new solar power plants (83%) and wind farms (79%).
Proposals to increase energy efficiency also attract overwhelming support, with more than three-quarters in favor of each of the following policies:
- Providing tax incentives to make homes more energy efficient (85% support)
- Providing tax incentives to make businesses more energy efficient (80% support)
- Enforcing stricter energy efficiency standards for buildings and appliances (77% support)
Heatmap additionally finds large majority support for the following proposals focused on environmental justice, corporate accountability, and public transportation:
- Investing in and expanding public transit systems to reduce transportation emissions (80% support)
- Implementing policies that address environmental injustices and disparities in low-income and minority communities (78% support)
- Establishing a carbon tax on large polluters (76% support)
It’s a clear political advantage for candidates to have pro-climate platforms. Most Americans say that they are more likely to vote for a candidate for president whose climate change platform includes “a government-led initiative to plant millions of trees to remove carbon from the atmosphere” (69% more likely) and “subsidies for ‘green’ purchases such as EVs, heat pumps, home solar panels, etc.” (60% more likely).
On balance, Americans also say that they are more inclined to vote for candidates who support each of the following climate-related proposals:
- Building more nuclear power plants in the U.S. (51% more likely / 30% less likely)
- A plan where wealthy countries, including the United States, help pay poorer countries to cut emissions and adapt to climate change (45% more likely / 33% less likely)
Climate Nexus – Voters recognize methane as a pollutant and support policies to address methane pollution, but most don’t associate it with the oil and gas industry [Release, Topline]
Voters aren’t deeply familiar with methane, but recognize it as a pollutant. Most voters (68%) say that they’ve heard little or nothing about methane gas, but the majority (64%) also rate it as at least a “minor” problem for the climate – including 38% who call methane gas a “major problem” for the climate.
Voters associate methane more with waste and livestock than with energy extraction. When asked to select two phrases that they most associate with methane gas, voters are much more likely to connect it with “cows and other livestock” (44%) and with “landfills” (33%) than with “fossil fuels” (18%) or “oil and gas extraction” (16%).
Further demonstrating how voters are at least vaguely aware of methane pollution, around three in ten associate methane gas with the terms “air pollution” (31%) and “greenhouse gas” (29%).
The public supports a range of measures to reduce methane pollution after learning about it. After reading that agriculture, energy, and waste are the economic sectors that contribute most to U.S. methane emissions, large majorities support government action to reduce methane emissions from each of these sectors:
- 81% support government action to reduce methane emissions from waste (landfills and wastewater facilities)
- 75% support government action to reduce methane emissions from energy (oil and gas)
- 67% support government action to reduce methane emissions from agriculture (cows and other livestock)
Further, after learning more about different ways to reduce U.S. methane emissions, most voters support each of the following measures aimed at reducing pollution from the oil and gas industry:
- 82% support requiring oil and gas companies to seal methane leaks at their active wells
- 82% support requiring oil and gas companies to seal methane leaks from all oil wells, including those that produce little or no oil
- 78% support using data from new emissions monitoring technologies to enforce government methane emissions rules
- 74% support government policies that encourage oil and gas companies to reduce methane emissions through tax incentives and funding to help them meet government standards
- 73% support government policies that require oil and gas companies to reduce their methane emissions and penalize those that do not meet government standards
- 70% support government policies to phase out routine gas flaring
Yale + GMU – Longitudinal data indicates that many Americans are changing their attitudes about global warming over time, and shifts are mostly in the direction of greater concern about the problem [Article]
Over the course of their long-running “Climate Change in the American Mind” study, Yale and GMU have identified a cohort of over 2,000 adults who have taken their surveys multiple times.
By observing differences in responses from survey to survey among the same respondents, Yale and GMU were able to extract some interesting insights about how climate attitudes change over time. Overall, their data indicates that many Americans change their climate change opinions over time and that these changes typically reflect increasing rather than decreasing concern about the problem.
Pulling from their article, with emphasis added in bold:
“The Global Warming’s Six Americas framework describes six climate change audiences within the American public: the Alarmed, Concerned, Cautious, Disengaged, Doubtful, and Dismissive. These groups form a spectrum from most to least worried about global warming. The Alarmed are convinced global warming is happening and human-caused, view it as an immediate threat, and strongly support climate action. At the other end of the spectrum, the Dismissive are convinced that global warming is not happening or human-caused, minimize the risks, and oppose climate action.
People can become more or less worried about and engaged with global warming over time, and thereby switch categories in the Six Americas framework. Our national research has found that the Alarmed have grown more than any other audience, nearly doubling in size over the past decade. However, this prior research used cross-sectional data, or different samples of U.S. adults. Longitudinal data that is collected from the same individuals over time (i.e., panel data) provides evidence about changes among specific people; that is, who has or hasn’t changed their minds about global warming.
In this study, we use panel data to investigate a special cohort of U.S. adults (n = 2,135) who participated in our Climate Change in the American Mind surveys two or more times between 2011 and 2022…
Overall, 30% of respondents shifted toward the Alarmed, while 21% shifted toward the Dismissive. The Dismissive were more likely than the Alarmed to change segments over time (39% of the Dismissive moved up the Six Americas spectrum, while 22% of the Alarmed moved down). Additionally, the Doubtful and Disengaged were also more likely to move up the spectrum than down (44% of the Doubtful and 43% of the Disengaged moved up, while 19% and 27%, respectively, moved down). The most common change over time was a shift upwards of one segment. For instance, most of the respondents who became Alarmed were initially Concerned, and most who became Concerned were initially Cautious. Overall, these results show that Americans have become more worried about and engaged with global warming over time.
The demographic and political groups that were most likely to move up the Six Americas spectrum include Black respondents (36% moved up), respondents who earn $50,000-$99,999 in annual household income (34%), liberal Democrats (33%), and moderate/conservative Democrats (33%). Conversely, the groups that were most likely to move down the Six Americas spectrum over time included those who did not identify with a party or were not interested in politics (29% moved down), liberal/moderate Republicans (29%), and Independents (24%)…
These results show that Americans’ climate opinions are dynamic and some people are indeed changing their minds about global warming. This supports our prior research finding that Americans are reporting stronger pro-climate opinions over time. Shifts in public opinion are also evident in the Yale Climate Opinion Maps (YCOM) and Climate Change in the American Mind (CCAM) Explorer. As shown here, Americans are moving up the Six Americas spectrum toward the Alarmed, and these shifts are associated with changes in support for climate policy and behavior. These findings provide further evidence of a growing social consensus that is more closely aligned with the scientific consensus about human-caused climate change – that it is real and a serious threat.”
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