Identifying the most important predictors of support for climate policy in the United States

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-23
Author(s):  
MATTHEW H. GOLDBERG ◽  
ABEL GUSTAFSON ◽  
MATTHEW T. BALLEW ◽  
SETH A. ROSENTHAL ◽  
ANTHONY LEISEROWITZ
Keyword(s):  
Global Warming ◽  
Climate Policy ◽  
Risk Perceptions ◽  
Public Support ◽  
Climate Change Policy ◽  
Relative Weight ◽  
The United States ◽  
Policy Support ◽  
The Usa ◽  
Registered Voters

Abstract Reducing global warming will require enacting strong climate policies, which is unlikely to happen without public support. While prior research has identified varied predictors of climate change policy support, it is unclear which predictors are strongest for the American electorate as a whole, and which predictors are strongest for Democrats and Republicans. In a nationally representative sample of registered voters (n = 2063), we use relative weight analysis to identify the strongest predictors of public climate policy support. We find that, among registered voters in the USA, the five most important predictors of climate policy support are: worry about global warming; risk perceptions; certainty that global warming is happening; belief that global warming is human-caused; and general affect toward global warming. Collectively, these five variables account for 51% of the variance in policy support. Results split by political party indicate that pro-climate injunctive norms and global warming risk perceptions are the variables that differ most between Republicans and Democrats, accounting for significantly more variance in policy support among Republicans. These findings can inform policymakers and advocates seeking to build public support for climate action.

scholarly journals Current surveys may underestimate climate change skepticism evidence from list experiments in Germany and the USA

PLoS ONE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (7) ◽  
pp. e0251034
Author(s):  
Liam F. Beiser-McGrath ◽  
Thomas Bernauer
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
United States ◽  
Public Support ◽  
The United States ◽  
Policy Support ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Public Concern ◽  
Public Opinion Surveys ◽  
Climate Change Mitigation Policy ◽  
The Usa

Strong public support is a prerequisite for ambitious and thus costly climate change mitigation policy, and strong public concern over climate change is a prerequisite for policy support. Why, then, do most public opinion surveys indicate rather high levels of concern and rather strong policy support, while de facto mitigation efforts in most countries remain far from ambitious? One possibility is that survey measures for public concern fail to fully reveal the true attitudes of citizens due to social desirability bias. In this paper, we implemented list-experiments in representative surveys in Germany and the United States (N = 3620 and 3640 respectively) to assess such potential bias. We find evidence that people systematically misreport, that is, understate their disbelief in human caused climate change. This misreporting is particularly strong amongst politically relevant subgroups. Individuals in the top 20% of the income distribution in the United States and supporters of conservative parties in Germany exhibit significantly higher climate change skepticism according to the list experiment, relative to conventional measures. While this does not definitively mean that climate skepticism is a widespread phenomenon in these countries, it does suggest that future research should reconsider how climate change concern is measured, and what subgroups of the population are more susceptible to misreporting and why. Our findings imply that public support for ambitious climate policy may be weaker than existing survey research suggests.

A Climate Backlash: Comparing Populist Parties’ Climate Policies in Denmark, Finland, and Sweden

2021 ◽  
pp. 107049652110277
Author(s):  
Antto Vihma ◽  
Gunilla Reischl ◽  
Astrid Nonbo Andersen
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Climate Policy ◽  
Public Support ◽  
Climate Change Policy ◽  
The United States ◽  
Party Competition ◽  
Empirical Science ◽  
Ideal Types ◽  
Climate Policies ◽  
Change Policy

The rise of authoritarian populism has disrupted the patterns of party competition in many Western societies. Related to this development, the current debates in the United States and European Union illustrate how empirical science on climate change may become intensely politicized, and all ambitious climate policies challenged in the contemporary political landscape. We set out an analytical framework with three ideal types of political strategies for opposing climate policies: climate science denialism, climate policy nationalism, and climate policy conservativism. Empirically, the article investigates populist resistance to ambitious climate change policy in the Nordic context, where countries have sought to assume global leadership in climate politics and have considerable public support for climate action. In an analysis of the evolving positions of populist parties in Denmark, Finland, and Sweden in recent elections, the article sheds light on the interconnection between populism and climate change policy.

scholarly journals Magnifying Focusing Events: Global Smoke Plumes and International Construal Connections in Newspaper Coverage of 2020 Wildfire Events

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen P. Groff
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Global Warming ◽  
Mixed Methods ◽  
Climate Policy ◽  
News Coverage ◽  
The United States ◽  
International Travel ◽  
Focusing Events ◽  
Wildfire Smoke ◽  
Smoke Plumes

As climate policy focusing events, wildfires are distinct from hurricanes, floods, and tornados because they also result in the release of massive smoke plumes that contribute to the concentration of atmospheric carbon. However, unlike melting glaciers, wildfires may be easier to dismiss as individual acts of human error, spontaneous acts of mother nature, and/or necessary ecological processes of agricultural renewal. This paper presents a mixed-methods analysis of 150 international and domestic English language newspaper articles related to wildfire events occurring in Australia, Canada, Germany, Greece, Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States during the year 2020. The analysis examines how news coverage of wildfire events might focus or diffuse attention to international climate policy and anthropogenic global warming. The quantitative findings provide evidence to suggest that 30% of wildfire coverage is attributed to climate change. However, qualitative analysis suggests that climate change is acknowledged as a blame frame that is often only inferentially attributed to anthropogenic origins. The mixed-methods analysis finds that only 6% of news coverage related wildfire events to emission contributions. The analysis of these exemplar articles suggests that the international travel of wildfire smoke may serve as a focusing event from which to emphasize wildfires as both a consequence of and contributor to, global warming. Findings indicate that environmental coalitions and scientific experts’ engagement with the press are integral to creating frames that link the increasing frequency, duration, and range of wildfire events to climate policy needs.

scholarly journals Development of Renewable Energy in China, USA, and Brazil: A Comparative Study on Renewable Energy Policies

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (21) ◽  
pp. 9136 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gaafar Muhammed ◽  
Neyre Tekbiyik-Ersoy
Keyword(s):  
Renewable Energy ◽  
Linear Regression ◽  
Linear Regression Analysis ◽  
The United States ◽  
Policy Support ◽  
Energy Sources ◽  
Regression Analyses ◽  
Regulatory Instruments ◽  
The Usa ◽  
Installed Capacity

Countries differ in terms of their socio-economic development, population growth, and energy consumption. Many countries still depend on conventional energy to supply enough energy source for their demand, while some have made considerable progress in making the transition to renewable/sustainable energy sources. Owing to the increasing demand and drawbacks of conventional energy sources, policies can play a major role in encouraging and increasing the uptake of renewable energy (RE) technologies. In this paper, a general overview on the RE activities in the three leading countries—China, Brazil, and the United States of America (USA)—is presented. Moreover, a comparative analysis on the implementations of the RE support policies is conducted. The linear regression analysis technique is applied to develop several models for the three countries in order to investigate the effect of different policies on RE. The main contributions of this study are establishing a link between RE support policies and RE development (in terms of the installed capacity) in the three countries under study, and providing models that can be used in estimating RE development using RE policy data. In addition to this, some models are developed to investigate the relationship between RE installed capacity and the patents. The linear regression analyses suggest that RE policies promote the development of RE installed capacity in the three countries in different proportions. For example, it is found that each additional wind policy will increase the RE wind capacity in China, Brazil, and the USA by 1.63, 0.689, and 1.576 GW, respectively. Moreover, the economic instruments turn out to be more effective in promoting the RE installed capacity in the USA and Brazil, while the policy support and regulatory instruments are the most influential policy categories in China. Furthermore, the linear regression analyses indicate the existence of a positive significant relation between the number of patents and the total RE installed capacity in the three countries.

scholarly journals Support for Minimum Legal Sales Age Laws Set to Age 21 Across Australia, Canada, England, and United States: Findings From the 2018 ITC Four Country Smoking and Vaping Survey

2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (12) ◽  
pp. 2266-2270
Author(s):  
Summer Sherburne Hawkins ◽  
Janet Chung-Hall ◽  
Lorraine Craig ◽  
Geoffrey T Fong ◽  
Ron Borland ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Household Income ◽  
Smoking Status ◽  
Public Support ◽  
Strong Support ◽  
The United States ◽  
Policy Support ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Former Smokers ◽  
Sectional Analysis

Abstract Introduction Although the United States has seen a rapid increase in tobacco minimum legal sales age (MLSA) laws set to age 21, there is wide variation across high-income countries and less is known about policy support outside of the United States. We examined the prevalence of support for tobacco MLSA 21 laws as well as associations by sociodemographic, smoking, and household characteristics among current and former adult smokers. Methods In this cross-sectional analysis, we used the 2018 International Tobacco Control Four Country Smoking and Vaping Survey to examine support for MLSA 21 laws among 12 904 respondents from Australia, Canada, England, and United States. Results Support for raising the legal age of purchasing cigarettes/tobacco to 21 ranged from 62.2% in the United States to 70.8% in Canada. Endorsement also varied by age, such that 40.6% of 18–20 years old supported the policy compared with 69.3% of those aged ≥60 years. In the adjusted regression model, there was also higher support among respondents who were female than male, non-white than white, those who did not allow smoking in the household than those that did, and those who had children in the household than those that did not. There were no differences by household income, education, or smoking status. Conclusions Most current and former smokers, including a sizable minority of those aged ≤20 years, support raising the legal age of purchasing cigarettes/tobacco to 21. Implications There was strong support for MLSA 21 laws among smokers and former smokers across Australia, Canada, England, and the United States, providing evidence for the increasing public support of the passage of these laws beyond the United States.

scholarly journals Predicting the importance of global warming as a voting issue among registered voters in the United States

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
pp. 100008 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eryn Campbell ◽  
John Kotcher ◽  
Edward Maibach ◽  
Seth A. Rosenthal ◽  
Anthony Leiserowitz
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Global Warming ◽  
The United States ◽  
Registered Voters

scholarly journals How Do Different Frames Affect Public Support for Climate Change Policy: Evidence from a Multi-Country Conjoint Study

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Niheer Dasandi ◽  
Hilary Graham ◽  
David Hudson ◽  
Slava Jankin Mikhaylov ◽  
Jennifer vanHeerde-Hudson ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Public Support ◽  
Climate Change Policy ◽  
Mitigation Policy ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Change Policy ◽  
The Usa ◽  
And Migration ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Mitigation Policies

This study tests the effects of different framings of climate change messages on public support for mitigation policy using conjoint survey experiments conducted in five countries: China, Germany, India, the UK, and the USA. We consider four different types of climate change frames: valence (positive vs. negative), theme (economic, environmental, health, and migration), scale (individual, community, country, and global), and timeframe (2050, 2030, now). The analysis also tests the effects of these different frames on individuals who are not concerned by the effects of climate change. Our results show a positive framing, in terms of the opportunities they provide, increases support for mitigation policies. We also find that an environmental and health framing of climate change increases public support for mitigation, while a migration framing reduces public support, and an economic framing has no effect. The results also show that framing climate change at a global level elicit greater public support for mitigation than at an individual level, and discussing the current impacts of climate change leads to greater support than future impacts. Our analysis also finds that a positive framing and a health framing of climate change also increase support for mitigation policies among those not concerned by the effects of climate change.

scholarly journals Flood Sensitivity, Risk Perception, and Support for Climate Action in the United States

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Jamieson
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Risk Perceptions ◽  
Political Action ◽  
Public Support ◽  
Positive Association ◽  
The United States ◽  
Change Communication ◽  
The Us ◽  
Climate Action

Despite increasing evidence of the effects of climate change and scientific consensus about its threat, significant political barriers to climate action remain in the US. American public opinion about climate change is generally perceived as stable and sharply divided along partisan lines. However, less is known about the relationship between flood sensitivity and public opinion about climate change. Combining the ND-GAIN Urban Adaptation Assessment data of American cities with public opinion data from the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication, this paper demonstrates the positive association between flood sensitivity and beliefs about climate change, risk perceptions, and support for climate action. These results have important implications for the understanding of public opinion about climate change, suggesting that flood sensitivity shapes perceptions of climate change. The results also have important implications for advocates of political action, suggesting that making flood sensitivity salient could help mobilize public support for climate action.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document