Environmental Polling Roundup – September 16th, 2022
HEADLINES
- Yale Program on Climate Change Communication (YPCCC) – Messaging on cost savings is key to improving perceptions of renewables (Article)
- NYT/Siena + Navigator – Contrasting poll findings about the popularity of the Inflation Reduction Act show that basic information about it can dramatically increase support (NYT/Siena Article, NYT/Siena Crosstabs, Navigator Deck)
- The Economist/YouGov – Americans are more likely to attribute recent droughts to climate change than to natural patterns, and just under half of Americans continue to say that they’ve been personally affected by climate change (Topline, Crosstabs)
KEY TAKEAWAYS
- More education about the Inflation Reduction Act is needed in order to bolster public support for it. New polling by the New York Times and Siena finds that voters are split roughly evenly on the Inflation Reduction Act when they aren’t provided with any details about it, while new polling by Navigator finds that voters support the bill by an overwhelming margin after reading a brief description of its major provisions.
- Messaging about costs is critical to winning the public debate on the clean energy transition. A newly published experiment by researchers at Yale finds that messaging on cost savings is more effective than messaging on the economy or messaging on global warming in improving perceptions about the benefits of renewable energy.
- There is an opportunity to increase public urgency around climate change by convincing those who see it as a future issue to recognize its current impacts. Polling by The Economist and YouGov this summer has consistently found that just under half of Americans report having personally experienced the effects of climate change. Meanwhile, a stable percentage of around one-tenth say that they expect to feel the effects of climate change in the future but haven’t felt them yet. Drawing a clearer connection between climate change and extreme weather can be the key to bridging this gap, as Americans are inclined to believe that climate change is the primary factor behind severe weather events like recent droughts.
GOOD DATA POINTS TO HIGHLIGHT
- [IRA] Voters support the Inflation Reduction Act by a 38-point margin (64% support / 26% oppose) after reading a brief, one-sentence description of it [Navigator]
- [Climate Change] The majority of Americans (55%) recognize that the world’s climate is changing as a result of human activity [The Economist/YouGov]
- [Climate Change + Extreme Weather] Americans are 11 points more likely to say that recent droughts are primarily the result of climate change (45%) than to believe that they are the kinds of events that “just happen from time to time” (34%) [The Economist/YouGov]
- [Issue Priority] More Americans say that climate change and the environment is the single “most important issue” to them than any other issue besides inflation / prices, health care, and jobs / the economy [The Economist/YouGov]
FULL ROUNDUP
Yale Program on Climate Change Communication (YPCCC)
Messaging on cost savings is key to lifting support for renewables (Article)
In a newly-released peer-reviewed paper summarized in this YPCCC article, researchers at Yale tested different types of persuasive messages about renewable energy and found that messaging on the cost savings of renewable energy is the most effective messaging frame to improve beliefs about the benefits of renewables.
Cost saving messages were the most effective in lifting perceptions about renewables among both Democrats and Republicans, and in terms of both immediate and longer-term persuasion.
Pulling from the article linked above, with emphasis added in bold:
“Our study investigated how three different messages about the benefits of renewable energy (global warming mitigation, cost savings, economy and job growth) affect public beliefs about the benefits of renewable energy and support for renewable energy policies. We measured the message effects immediately after people viewed the message and then the durability of these effects over three weeks…
We found that the cost savings frame – that renewable energy can reduce electricity costs – was the most effective message in shifting public beliefs about the benefits of renewable energy. The cost savings frame was also the most effective message among both Republicans and Democrats, in both its immediate effect and the durability of the effect over time.
…
Our study also investigated the effects of these messages on support for renewable energy policies. We found that the cost savings frame had a small, statistically significant effect on policy support among both Democrats and Republicans, and the economy frame had a small, statistically significant effect on policy support among Republicans. However, the global warming frame did not affect policy support among either political group.”
It’s especially critical for advocates to communicate about the cost savings and other economic benefits of clean energy because polls frequently show that the costs and economic impacts of the clean energy transition are the aspects of the energy debate that are least settled.
While Americans generally believe that clean energy and climate action will have positive impacts on the environment and on public health, they are more divided – typically along party lines – about whether climate action is good or bad for the economy and for their own household finances.
NYT/Siena + Navigator
Contrasting polls about the popularity of the Inflation Reduction Act show that basic information about it can dramatically increase support (NYT/Siena Article, NYT/Siena Crosstabs, Navigator Deck)
These two new polls of registered voters from NYT/Siena and Navigator are illustrative in highlighting how the Inflation Reduction Act is widely popular, as long as people understand what’s in it.
The NYT/Siena poll asked about the Inflation Reduction Act in a couple of different ways, with respondents randomly assigned to hear one of two descriptions.
When asked if they support or oppose “the health and climate spending bill passed by Congress last month,” voters are close to evenly split in their opinions (34% support / 32% oppose). And when asked if they support or oppose “the Inflation Reduction Act passed by Congress last month,” voters say they support it by a narrow five-point margin (37% support / 32% oppose).
The Navigator poll, meanwhile, found that voters support the Inflation Reduction Act by an overwhelming 38-point margin (64% support / 26% oppose) after reading just one sentence about it that explains some of its major provisions: “As you may know, Biden and Democrats’ new legislation that has been passed by Congress is called the Inflation Reduction Act, which will give Medicare the power to negotiate drug prices, bring down health insurance premiums, and invest in clean energy like wind and solar power.”
Other polling by groups such as LCV and Climate Power has similarly found an overwhelmingly positive reaction to the bill when voters learn about some of its key provisions, and polls show that prescription drug cost provisions in particular are a key driver of support.
As the less encouraging NYT/Siena data indicates, it’s important to highlight the major provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act when communicating about it because the public still has a lot to learn about the specific benefits of the bill.
The Economist/YouGov
Americans are more likely to attribute recent droughts to climate change than to natural patterns, and just under half of Americans continue to say that they’ve been personally affected by climate change (Topline, Crosstabs)
The latest national tracking poll from The Economist and YouGov finds that the majority of Americans (55%) recognize that the world’s climate is changing as a result of human activity. And while just under half of Americans (47%) report that they have personally felt the effects of climate change, an additional 11% say they haven’t felt the impacts of climate change yet but expect to in their lifetimes.
All of these figures are stable from the last time that The Economist and YouGov asked these questions in August. In that poll, 53% said that they believed the world’s climate was changing as a result of human activity, 47% said they’d already felt the impacts of climate change, and an additional 12% said they expected to feel the effects of climate change in the future.
The new Economist/YouGov poll also underscores how extreme weather events like the severe droughts occurring in much of the country can help persuade people to understand climate change as a here-and-now issue. Americans are 11 points more likely to say that recent droughts are “primarily the result of climate change” (45%) than to say that “these kinds of events just happen from time to time” (34%).
Previous research by Yale has shown that hot, dry weather can be especially powerful evidence of the impacts of climate change, so it’s important for advocates to help the public make the connection between climate change and the droughts they’re experiencing or hearing about in the news.
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