Issue: Climate Impacts

This post includes climate and environment headlines, data points, and key takeaways from recent public polls – including polls on extreme weather and the American Jobs Plan.

Climate Nexus’s national poll this month focuses on infrastructure but also touches on several other key debates over climate and clean energy.
The poll is also interesting in that it is one of the few public polls that puts clean energy front and center in its description of the American Jobs Plan, and even connects the bill to a 100% clean economy goal. Consistent with other polling that has found that climate and clean energy components enhance support for the American Jobs Plan, Climate Nexus finds that voters have overwhelmingly positive reactions to big investment in clean energy infrastructure.
Voters support the idea of “multi-trillion-dollar economic stimulus legislation that prioritizes investments in clean energy infrastructure and technologies” by a 62%-29% margin, and continue to support it by a 56%-44% margin after learning that it would likely need to pass with no Republican votes.
The reason that the proposal enjoys majority support, even when presented as partisan legislation, is that Democratic voters care more about passing clean energy legislation than Republican voters care about stopping it: Democrats support passing a clean energy bill on a hypothetical party-line vote by a 91%-9% margin, while Republican voters oppose it by an 81%-19% margin.

This post includes climate and environment headlines, data points, and key takeaways from recent public polls – including polling on the American Jobs Plan, taxes for infrastructure, the Keystone XL cancellation, and climate impacts.