Majority of US voters slam Trump’s climate policy
A majority of voters in the US are critical of the Trump administration’s climate policy, a new poll by Yale University and George Mason University has found.
The poll also reveals that most people in the US are now connecting the climate crisis with the rising costs of living. And almost half of the people polled think that climate policies that promote clean energy will improve economic growth and provide new jobs. Only 27 percent believe, similarly to Trump and his administration, that such policies would reduce economic growth and cost jobs.
“If your kid has asthma, you should care about climate change. If you want to make money, you should care about climate change. If you like chocolate, you should care about climate change,” Anthony Leiserowitz, director of the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication, said to the Guardian.
A clear majority are opposed to President Trump’s decision to pull the US out of the Paris Climate Agreement, and even more voters want to see the US rejoin the climate agreement, the new poll shows. The poll also indicates that a substantial number of US voters would prefer to vote for a political candidate for public office who supports action on climate change. And almost half of all registered voters think the climate crisis should be a high or very high priority for the country’s president and Congress.
Nearly eight out of ten voters are also disagreeing with Trump’s orders to stop and censor federal agencies from doing climate research and providing information about climate change to the public. Just as many voters oppose Trump’s plans to defund and dismantle the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). Most US voters seem to want more information about the climate crisis. For example, 73 percent of voters say they want schools to teach children about causes, consequences, and potential solutions for the climate crisis.
Support for renewable and clean energy sources is also high among US voters, the poll shows. Nearly eight out of ten voters want to see more renewable energy on public land and for the government to fund more research into renewable energy sources. Another noteworthy finding from the poll is that 65 percent of voters oppose Trump’s recent moves to prohibit the construction of new offshore wind farms. As much as 66 percent of US voters think that the development of clean energy should be a high or very high priority for the president and Congress.
While Trump says a transition away from fossil fuels to clean energy is a “hoax” and a “con job”, many voters actually support such a transition; 66 percent say the US should use more renewable energy, and 55 percent say the US should use less fossil fuels than it does today. In fact, a majority of voters wants to see the US economy completely transition away from fossil fuels to 100 percent clean energy by 2050. And a large majority, 74 percent of voters, support regulating carbon dioxide as a pollutant as a way to transition the country away from fossil fuels to cleaner and renewable energy future.
The poll shows that it is an overwhelming majority of Democrats who want to see more action on climate change and that it’s Democratic voters who would rather back political candidates that take the climate crisis seriously. Among Republicans voters, just 21 percent would like to support a political candidate that supports action on climate change, with 37 percent of Republican voters wanting the complete opposite. So unlike most other industrialized countries, the US remains a highly polarized country in regard to climate change.
“Looking at the long-term trajectory, there’s been a huge increase in the proportion of Americans who think climate change should be a priority for the president and Congress,” said Leiserowitz. “But with Republicans, this number has basically been flat the whole time. It hasn’t changed much.”
Despite this deep polarization between Democrats and Republicans, the new poll shows—perhaps to the surprise of many, considering how the media and political establishment in the US treat the climate issue—that Trump clearly has no real public support or mandate to obstruct climate efforts and to sabotage energy transformation and decarbonization in the US. Or elsewhere, for that matter.