Audience: Conservatives & Republicans

For Republicans, belief in global warming per se is less of a sticking point (most think it’s happening, including 47% of conservative Republicans), whereas accepting that it’s human caused remains less common (only 30% of conservative Republicans). This report provides an analysis of public opinion data about the views of Democratic, Independent, and Republican voters registered on global warming, climate and energy policies, and personal collective action. Results show that the majority of registered voters believe that global warming is real (75%) and caused by human action (61%).

Frames that include social and economic reforms increase public support for climate change mitigation. Combining increased minimum wage, affordable housing with job guarantees are effective frames, particularly among people of color. Advocates should consider linking climate policy to social and economic reforms. Policy bundling can expand the scope of political discussion and sidestep gridlock. In a series of experiments, the authors find that compared to frames that did not include any economic policy, hypothetical proposals that included a job guarantee, the retraining of fossil fuel workers, or provide unionized clean energy jobs increases support for the bundled policy by 6-14 percentage points.  Importantly: while the increase in support was higher for Democrats, NONE of the economic frames was associated with a decrease in support among Republicans.