Inviscid

climateadaptation:

Summary findings:

• A large majority of Americans (87%, down 5 percentage points since Fall 2012) say the president and the Congress should make developing sources of clean energy a “very high” (26%), “high” (32%), or medium priority (28%). Few say it should be a low priority (12%).                                                                                                  
• Most Americans (70%, down 7 points since Fall 2012) say global warming should be a “very high” (16%), “high” (26%), or “medium priority” (29%) for the president and Congress. Three in ten (28%) say it should be a low priority.

• Six in ten Americans (59%) say the U.S. should reduce its own greenhouse gas emissions regardless of what other countries do. Relatively few (10%) say the U.S. should reduce its emissions only if other industrialized and/or developing countries do - and only 6 percent of Americans say the U.S. should not reduce its greenhouse gas emissions.

• Americans say that corporations and industry (70%), citizens themselves (63%), the U.S. Congress (57%), and the President (52%) should be doing more to address global warming.

• Majorities of Americans support:
  • Providing tax rebates for people who purchase energy-efficient vehicles or solar panels (71%);
  • Funding more research into renewable energy sources (70%);
  • Regulating CO2 as a pollutant (68%);
  • Requiring fossil fuel companies to pay a carbon tax and using the money to pay down the national debt (61%);
  • Eliminating all subsidies for the fossil-fuel industry (59%);
  • Expanding offshore drilling for oil and natural gas off the U.S. coast (58%);
  • Requiring electric utilities to produce at least 20% of their electricity from renewable energy sources, even if it costs the average household an extra $100 a year (55%).

• Support for some of these policies, however, has fallen since 2008, including funding renewable energy research (-21 percentage points), expanding offshore drilling (-17 points), and tax rebates for energy efficient vehicles and solar panels (-15 points).

• Half of Americans (50%) have never heard of the Keystone XL pipeline. Moreover, few Americans say they are following the issue closely (18%). Among those Americans who have heard of the Keystone pipeline, about two in three support the project (63%).

 

The report includes an Executive Summary and reports trends in key indicators over the past several years. It can be downloaded here:

 

 Public Support for Climate and Energy Policies in April 2013