Resource Type: Polling & Surveys

This post includes climate and environment headlines, data points, and key takeaways from recent public polls – including a major new report from the Pew Research Center about the clean energy transition, two new polls assessing Americans’ climate attitudes from conservative perspectives, and new polling about energy insecurity among low-income Americans.

To prevent individuals from believing false claims, “prebunking” can be an effective tactic. “Prebunking” works by inoculating people against false arguments they may be likely to hear. This strategy was tested on COVID vaccine truths and falsehoods, but it has also been found to work for beliefs about climate change, alcohol education, extremism, and health issues. This strategy was tested using 30-second videos. This study tried three approaches within the videos: 1) reveal common manipulative rhetorical strategies (e.g., invoking fear with dramatic music), 2) counter false claims about vaccine safety with facts, and 3) a hybrid approach to address both strategies, identifying the rhetorical manipulation and false information about vaccines. People who watched the 30-second video were more likely to recognize rhetorical strategies in the video containing misinformation about the COVID-19 vaccine, reported lower support for sharing or financially supporting the video containing misinformation, and indicated higher willingness to get the COVID-19 vaccine.

69% of Americans believe we should prioritize developing renewable energy alternatives. Just 30% believe the U.S. should prioritize increased fossil fuel production. However, 67% believe we should keep a mix of renewables and fossil fuels, as compared to phasing out fossil fuels completely (31%). Democrats are far more in favor of renewables—as compared to fossil fuels—than Republicans, although both sets of voters have internal divisions within them, too. 75% of Americans support America playing a role in international climate negotiations. 72% of Americans support the U.S. government encouraging wind and solar production, compared to 51% for electric vehicles, 35% for nuclear power, 33% for oil and gas drilling, and 20% for coal mining. 69% of Americans favor the U.S. taking steps to become carbon-neutral by 2050. This survey includes lots more related questions.

“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.

Americans believe climate change is happening and the government should take action. 76% of adult Americans believe there is solid evidence that temperatures on the planet have risen over the last four decades. This is the highest level of acceptance recorded since the inception of this survey in 2008. 59% of Americans think that there is solid evidence of global warming and that the warming is being at least partially caused by human activity. A majority (57%) of adult Americans agree that they have personally felt the effects of climate change. 61% of Americans disagreed that “Instead of trying to stop global warming from occurring we should focus on adapting to a warmer climate.”

In terms of public opinion, energy issues enjoy the least partisan divide while environmental issues, such as climate change, are the most partisan. Over the past year, there has been an increase in the number of Americans who say human-caused pollution contributes to climate change—from 79% to 82%—and say their lives have been impacted by climate change—from 39% to 53%. 46% say “energy issues, like the cost of energy and energy reliability” are extremely important—including 46% of Democrats and 47% of Republicans. 41% overall say “environmental issues, like clean air, clean water, climate change, and clean energy” are extremely important—including 60% of Democrats and just 20% of Republicans. Voters say they are generally more likely to support candidates who are pro-clean energy. Republican and independent voters generally favor natural gas. Just 16% of voters think the U.S. is energy independent.

This post includes climate and environment headlines, data points, and key takeaways from recent public polls – including a new messaging experiment to determine the most persuasive ways to talk about clean energy costs, findings from Yale’s latest mapping of climate change attitudes across the country, new polling on corporate accountability, and a new poll on Texas voters’ attitudes about climate and clean energy a year after the Texas Freeze.