Recent Polls Show Support for Limiting Climate Change Pollution

[UPDATE: New Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll (23 June 2010) finds that by a margin of 2 to 1, respondents favored comprehensive climate and energy legislation -- 63% to 31%. For details, click here.]

Four recent polls (Stanford University, Yale/George Mason University, ABC News/Washington Post and Benenson Strategy Group) conducted between May and June show strong support for government limiting greenhouse gas emissions. In recent weeks, President Obama has made climate and energy his next legislative priority, emphasizing the need for a comprehensive energy policy which addresses both climate change pollution and ramping up clean energy. Meanwhile, Senate Democrats are deliberating on the form of such a bill—debating whether it should be an energy-only approach (lacking appropriate policy to substantially reduce climate pollution that averts painful climate impacts) or a comprehensive bill?

According to recent polling (1000+ respondents in each poll), the public wants a comprehensive approach.

• 76% of the respondents in the Stanford poll “favored government limiting business’s emissions of greenhouse gases.”
• 71% of the respondents in the ABC News/Washington Post poll favored regulating greenhouse gases to reduce global warming. Of this, 51% “strongly” supported regulation while only 19 “strongly” opposed it.
• 77% of the respondents in Yale George Mason University poll believe “global warming should be a (medium, high, or very high) priority for the president and Congress? 77% support “regulating carbon dioxide (the primary greenhouse gas) as a pollutant?” And 61% support electricity production from renewable energy (such as solar and wind) “even if it cost the average household an extra $100 a year.”
• 63% of the respondents in the Benenson Strategy Group poll support an energy bill that would “limit pollution, invest in domestic energy sources and encourage companies to use and develop clean energy. It would do this in part by charging energy companies for carbon pollution in electricity or fuels like gas.” 

Polls clearly suggest that Americans want to address greenhouse gas pollution and are even willing to pay for it.

Another important aspect of the Stanford poll addresses Americans' views on climate change and its causes. According to Woods Institute Senior Fellow Jon Krosnick, a professor of communication and of political science at Stanford, "Several national surveys released during the last eight months have been interpreted as showing that fewer and fewer Americans believe that climate change is real, human-caused and threatening to people....Our surveys reveal a small decline in the proportion of people who believe global warming has been happening, from 84 percent in 2007 to 74 percent today. Statistical analysis of our data revealed that this decline is attributable to perceptions of recent weather changes by the minority of Americans who have been skeptical about climate scientists."

• 74% of respondents said yes “the Earth's temperature probably had been heating up over the last 100 years.”
• 75% believe “that human behavior was substantially responsible for any warming that has occurred”

  ©Stanford University

In addition, regardless of all the negative media around the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and its major 2007 climate change report, trust in scientists has not decreased.

   ©Stanford University

How you can help: The Senate is set to debate and vote on a climate & energy bill in the final weeks of July or early August (2010). Call your Senators and ask them to vote YES on a climate & energy bill that limits fossil fuel pollution.

Online WWF Resources Regarding U.S. Climate & Energy Policy:

• U.S. Federal Policy section, WWF blog
• Act For Our Future
• What does the Spill have to do with a Climate Bill?

Online Resources:

• The Climate Majority. The New York Times, 8 June 2010.
• Woods Institute for the Environment: Public Opinion on Climate & Energy.
• New Polling Shows Americans Want a Real Change in U.S. Energy Policy. WWF Blog. 8 June 2010.
• Tracking Public Attitudes about Climate Change—Latest Polls. U.S. Climate Action Network (USCAN)