Resource Type: Evaluation & Measuring Progress

“Perceived fairness” and “effectiveness” are the most important determinants of public support for climate policies. “Self-enhancement values” and “knowledge about climate change” showed weak relationships to public opinion support, and demographic variables showed only weak or close to zero relationship to support for climate policies (or climate concern). “Fairness” refers to the extent that people or a process are treated or implemented equally, or according to criteria like need or merit. “Effectiveness” is people’s beliefs that a policy can fulfill a specific aim.

Does “evaluation” sound judgy, “research” feel like a luxury, “testing” pointless, or “data” too technical?
Then we welcome you to explore with us how developing a culture of testing, evaluation and learning is crucial to multiracial, cross-class organizing in the climate movement. Evaluation and learning allow you to get real-time feedback about what is working (or not), and the space to grow from your experience and make shifts to your work. So it’s crucial to understanding the areas we are successfully building power and where we need to experiment and iterate. If we can’t track and improve, how do we know if we are on the way to winning?

Learn how to improve your advocacy (quickly) with state of the art research techniques. The perennial conflict in research – quality vs. speed – is a compromise no more, with quick-turn-around numeric tools and always-on focus groups you can trust, rigorous public opinion research and detailed audience engagement measures. Join Potential Energy as they share tips on research methodology and tools, and how you can get for-profit insights on a non-profit budget. Find out how to get deeper audience understanding that will make your messages truly connect with your audience for greater impact.

In 2021, we saw high and enduring public support for a range of actions that would address the climate crisis and put the country on a path to a cleaner future. The 70% of Americans who say they are at least “somewhat” worried about global warming is the highest figure recorded since this surveying began in 2008. A September 2021 poll also found that 70% of Americans believe that global warming is affecting weather in the United States, a new high. Americans are most likely to believe that global warming is having at least “some” effect on hot weather events such as extreme heat (68%), wildfires (67%), and droughts (66%). While Pew found that 65% of Republican voters in early 2020 believed that the country should prioritize renewables over fossil fuels, more Republican voters in April 2021 said that expanding fossil fuels should be the country’s energy priority (52%) than developing alternative energy sources (47%). However, Republican voters reported far less confidence in Republican politicians in their ability to handle environmental issues, as compared to other issues such as the economy or immigration. More Democrats said that passing a bill to address climate change and its effects should be a “top priority” for Congress (56%) than any other priority aside from stimulating the economy to recover from the coronavirus pandemic (60%) and passing a healthcare reform bill (57%). This report also includes survey data summaries about Build Back Better, scientists as trusted authorities, and holding corporations accountable.