[Scott] Up next on "Energy Switch," we'll find out what Americans of all stripes think about climate.

- If you say global warming, people think temperature.

And when they think temperature, then they start arguing about the science.

If you say climate change, you have Republicans and Democrats alike being more in agreement that it is happening.

- I mean, it's the elephant in the room.

So are we trusting surveys now more or less than we used to?

- Well, I think the public always has some skepticism towards surveys, but that's okay because we invite that, right?

If your methods are transparent, they're at the edge of the field, we feel very good about survey measurement.

The idea that we can take a nationally representative sample and get an estimate that's within a point or two of what Americans think or behave, that's a wonderful thing.

[Scott] Coming up, Career pollsters reveal America's opinions on climate, environment, and energy.

[Announcer] Major funding for this program was provided by Arizona State University.

Shaping global leaders, driving innovation, and transforming the future.

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[upbeat music] - I'm Scott Tinker, and I'm an energy scientist.

I work in the field, lead research, speak around the world, write articles, and make films about energy.

This show brings together leading experts on vital topics in energy and climate.

They may have different perspectives, but my goal is to learn, and illuminate, and bring diverging views together towards solutions.

Welcome to the "Energy Switch."

What does the American public think about climate change?

Both my expert guests have conducted environment and climate surveys averaging every two months for the past 20 years to tens of thousands of respondents.

They'll tell us not what they think, but what we think, Democrats, Republicans, and Independents on climate, environment and energy.

Some of their insights will certainly surprise you.

My guests are Ashley Grosse.

She's the executive vice president and head of Academic and Public Affairs at YouGov, a polling company.

Alec Tyson is a senior vice president at Ipsos Public Affairs and their lead pollster, formerly an associate director at Pew Research.

On this "Energy Switch," we'll learn the public opinion on climate in America.

Well, let's start right with it.

- Okay.

- After three decades in the news, and do people care much about climate?

What do your surveys show?

- They do, but it's not their top priority.

[Scott] Okay.

- They don't, they don't see it necessarily as interconnected to their most important issue, which tends to be jobs, the economy, inflation.

Those are the most important issues to people and have been for the last four last presidential elections.

And the environment, when you ask people about sort of what's, you know, the most important priority you have, it ranks about number five.

- Oh, interesting.

Okay.

- Yeah.

- One thing that's really interesting here is over the last 10 years, over the last 20 years, we haven't really seen an increase in the share of U.S.

adults who are concerned about climate change, right?

You have about a quarter or so, maybe a little bit more-- - Oh, interesting.

- Who say they're don't see this as a problem.

It's not that big of a concern for them.

And that share hasn't been changing, even as the national dialogue or some of the rhetoric around climate change has become more visible and stronger.

The current climate conversation, it may be resonating with the folks already inside the tent, but there's not a lot of evidence to show that it's bringing more folks into it.

- Gotcha.

Very fascinating.

I mean, in the last presidential election, you know, '24, it was hardly mentioned really.

I mean, it was kind of, it was there, but barely.

What's up with that?

- There, but barely.

I agree with that.

It took a backseat.

Right?

And when you think about what are elections about, they're about persuasion and turnout.

And in 2024, you had very stark choices for voters between Harris and Trump.

In that sense, climate wasn't an issue that was tipping the balance for many voters.

They had strong feelings about these two candidates.

Climate was a backseat issue.

[Scott] Interesting.

- You know, the parties tend to go after the big things that get people excited.

And it was inflation, rising costs that affect average people, cultural issues.

Both the parties are going to those issues that they own, that they really, they drive home well with their audience.

- How do you conduct polls?

What's the process?

- So, you invite people to a survey, either face to face or by telephone, by internet invitation.

You tend to ask questions that you've got benchmarks for over the last 30 years.

So, we're looking to find trends in people's attitudes and their knowledge about climate change.

- Right.

- And so often we're asking people multiple selections.

So, with a lot of the climate change questions I've seen, they tend to have very long answer categories, such as, I believe it is climate change is caused by humans, fully, partially-- that sort of thing, so.

[Scott] Oh, yeah.

So, at least it's not black or white.

- Right.

Yeah.

- Yeah.

You get kind of a scaler in there.

Similar kinds of approaches.

- Similar kinds of approaches.

And to stay on this point of questionnaire design is really important all the topics we cover, but certainly in climate change.

We want to use language that's accessible to people, that's neutral, doesn't represent the rhetoric of one political side over the other political side.

And then we do have a range of response options.

Sometimes do what we call an open-end response, which we ask folks to use their own words and say, "What's the top worry you have about climate change?"

And respondents can fill in the blank.

Other time, another method is more appropriate.

- When they fill in their own answer, that must be hard to kind of collate.

- It is, but it's often valuable just to hear folks using their own language.

That makes us better survey researchers to see that type of feedback, yeah.

- Sure.

Well, that's very cool.

Somebody pays you to do these.

Who commissions you?

- We're a business.

And we also work with media to do work that we think helps folks understand the national dialogue.

- Okay.

- So, I work with a lot of academics, think tanks, a lot of universities.

- So, yeah.

- Awesome.

And so faculty might have a grant, and part of that might be-- - Exactly right.

- To conduct a survey of some kind.

[Ashley] Exactly, so, for example, I can think of a study I've done that was from the University of Texas, incidentally funded by the fossil fuel industry to ask people about complicated issues on climate mitigation.

- Is it hands off?

It's up to you to design the survey, conduct it.

They don't try to influence or anything like that, or?

- We'll work with an academic to create the most non-partisan, partial way of asking questions, as Alec was saying.

You know, it's really important that we're getting true opinion.

- Right.

- And then the academics that we'll work with often will write up that and then provide that to their funders.

- Where does climate fit for the U.S.

voter among other priorities, if you will?

You've mentioned kind of fifth in a list, seeing the same thing or?

- Well, we'd see it generally lower down on the list.

It's not in that top tier is one way to think about it.

Things like the economy, immigration, healthcare, even maybe crime in your own area.

These tend to be issues that rank higher than climate change.

But you can pull two different things apart here.

It ranks lower down on a list when stacked up against other issues.

But a majority of Americans still want to do something about climate.

It just may not be at the top of their priority list.

- It really depends on who you're asking.

For example, Democrats care more about the environment, so it's gonna rank higher.

Republicans, it's much further down on the list.

- Yeah.

It's political.

Climate is political.

- It's very polarized.

- Okay.

What's the typical democratic stance on climate?

- I would say concerned about the issue, supportive of a broad range of steps to address climate change and anxious.

They wanted see urgency around, right?

And then to contrast that with the typical Republican perspective is some concern about climate change.

Maybe not the highest level of concern, but some concern.

[Scott] Yeah.

- Open to policy steps to address the issue.

But they have questions.

Some about the science, some about the role of government, less urgency and less of a high salience issue on that.

- Interesting.

- Yeah.

- We say Democrats and Republicans, but it's a, there's a lot of continuum in here.

- Absolutely.

There's nuance.

It's a mosaic.

But at the end of the day, when it comes to a question like how important is climate change, which in some way reduces your opinions down to a distilled attitude.

Democrats across that spectrum aligned in one place.

And Republicans across that spectrum align in a slightly different place.

- Interesting.

- Yeah.

- Very interesting.

Does it matter how it's framed?

I mean, earlier in the discussion it was global warming.

Does that framing matter?

[Ashley] Oh, very much so.

- Oh, okay.

- If you say global warming, people think temperature.

And when they think temperature, then they start arguing about the science.

- Okay.

- If you say climate change, you have Republicans and Democrats alike being more in agreement that it is happening.

- That's interesting.

Is there some common ground here between the left and the right on climate?

- Obviously politicians try to, and the parties try to make it seem as if it's a choice A or choice B. And we're very far apart when we're really not.

- Okay.

- You know, when you look at the data, you see that almost 90% of people agree that climate change is happening and it's caused by humans at least partially.

- Yes.

- That we're concerned and at least hopeful that our actions could change it.

- Right.

- And I would say that there's agreement on conservation, even at the most polarized folks that you would on other issues.

- Yeah.

- You'll see support for that national parks.

- Oh, interesting.

And do they see that as a climate issue or just a environmental, more of an environmental conservation?

- I think the latter.

- Okay.

- Absolutely, there's common ground on climate change.

And to find it, you need to peel back some of the disagreement at a national level of over how big a deal this is.

In some ways, that's what we're most divided over is, should this be the number one issue or really not the top issue?

But once you move past that, some of the steps that the country could take to deal with climate change, fairly popular among a lot of Americans, nature based solutions like widespread tree planting.

- Sure.

- Very popular idea.

- Right?

- Yeah.

Yeah.

- The idea of taxing corporations based on the amount of carbon they admit.

That's also pretty popular across groups.

So if you move away from, is this the top issue or not, you do find areas of common ground among Americans on climate change.

- Very interesting.

The second one's interesting too.

Are there any other breakdowns besides party?

Are there age breakdowns?

Are there gender differences?

- Not so much gender.

What I see is education.

I'll see some educational differences and definitely age.

- Okay.

- So, the older you are, the less convinced you are that this is caused by humans.

- Interesting.

- So, the younger you are, the more likely you are to accept humans cause environment, and therefore we can mitigate.

- Okay.

- Well, just on that note, why education can matter is climate change is a complex topic.

It's not an easy one to understand.

And for some, or maybe even for many, it might not have immediate impacts or examples in their own life.

- Sure.

- And that's part of the story here.

- And that's an excellent point.

So, when you think about who's shaping the dialogue or the narrative around climate change, where do the survey result, say who's doing that and what's doing that?

- Yeah.

We know that the leaders of the political parties and elected office or those who speak to the parties, they have a lot of influence over Americans today.

- Okay.

- And the other big factor is the news and information environment.

The voices you're hearing on a day-to-day basis, they absolutely have an influence on how you think about the world.

- Okay.

Do you see similar things, Ashley, on who's really shaping the dialogue here?

[Ashley] Definitely elites.

- And what does that mean?

- So, there are news elites, people who are communicating news to us or filtering news to us party elites, people who have a platform, you know, whether it's radio, television, internet, political commentators.

- Gotcha.

- Perhaps talking about various things, whether it's trust in scientists, right?

Those things don't seem to be related, but they are.

So, if you create seeds of distrust or trust, then you'll see that reflected in other things that have to do with experts on climate change.

- Right.

So, vaccinations might roll over into climate change.

- Exactly.

Exactly.

Right.

- For example.

- And sort of that lack of trust in institutions that we're seeing over the last decade is also related.

People don't trust the media to report accurately.

And based on our surveys, they hear maybe a hyperbolic message from what they consider progressive news sources.

[Scott] Interesting.

- The idea of trusted messengers on an issue like climate change, that really matters.

- Yeah.

Yes.

- And trusted messengers may be different for folks than they were 10 or 20 years ago.

They're certainly different for folks who are in different places on the political spectrum.

You may have a lot of confidence in someone you see on social media who's a voice you see every day and trust.

You may have-- - Substack.

Yeah, exactly.

And you may have a lot of confidence in your local weather person, but we know it is a low trust environment.

So national news media, perhaps less influence there than in the past.

But voices you have in information streams you consume on a daily basis maybe more influenced there.

- Interesting.

Yeah.

As you were saying that if it's a source you don't trust, it might actually influence you the other way.

- Well, we did a really interesting study in some language that didn't align with people's own worldview language, like crisis or emergency.

For folks who are more skeptical or don't see climate change as the top issue, when they hear language like that, it puts them on the back foot.

And in fact could make them, at least in the interviews we conducted, a bit more skeptical or even a little bit maybe more distrustful of this concept, yeah.

- Interesting.

- So, about three quarters of people admit to avoiding information on climate change that they find uncomfortable.

- Really?

75% of people?

- Yes.

Yes.

- Avoid information.

Wow.

[laughs] - Exactly.

And it may be because they are overwhelmed by catastrophic and hyperbolic language surrounding the issue.

- Interesting.

- There's a whole field the surrounding this on climate communication.

And it makes a difference.

It makes a difference whether people are engaged with the issue or they avoid it.

[Scott] Yeah.

Huh.

- Another finding that comes to mind is large shares of Americans, 80% or so, say they're frustrated by the level of disagreement over climate change.

That it can sometimes be the disagreement that's unpleasant about the climate change debate, at least from the public's perspective.

- Yes.

I could definitely understand that.

And we've seen that in other issues as well.

Do people trust climate scientists in the surveys?

- Right.

Well, for the most part, they do.

About seven in ten say they have confidence that climate scientists understand whether it's happening and a somewhat smaller share say they think they understand the causes of climate change.

But it's to say that's not a universal opinion.

About three in ten have some doubts that climate scientists understand the science.

And one place where you see confidence start to tail off is when you move from science to policy.

- Right.

- That's when doubts creep up, particularly among conservative Americans.

- Interesting.

I mean, it's the elephant in the room.

I need to ask it.

So, are we trusting surveys now more or less than we used to?

- Well, I think the public always has some skepticism towards surveys, but that's okay because we invite that, right?

If your methods are transparent, if they're up to date, if they're at the edge of the field, we feel very good about survey measurement.

I think it's actually in some ways a great moment to be in the field because we have stronger tools, better tools than maybe we did 10 or 15 years ago.

So, the idea that we can take a nationally representative sample and get an estimate that's within a point or two of what Americans think or behave, that's a wonderful thing.

- That helps.

That makes good sense.

Does the state of the economy, Alec, influence the way we think about climate in the surveys?

- Well, it certainly can when there's economic pain or sharp economic concern in this country, really all issues take a back seat.

In some ways Americans tell us they want both.

When we ask them, "What's important to you in climate policy?"

They say, "Protecting the environment for future generations."

That's at the top of the list.

But closely behind are these ideas of promoting economic growth or keeping consumer costs low.

- We've been asking this question since the '70s that sort of put these two things on polar opposites, right?

Like, do you want jobs or do you wanna protect the environment, right?

- Oh, I see.

Yeah.

- So if you shape the dialogue that way as a trade off.

- The question design can lead to answers-- - Oh, definitely.

- Than they're interpreted to be.

- That are shaping the policy debate in ways that aren't necessarily accurate.

How you ask questions can make such a difference.

- Yeah.

Do people feel like climate is affecting them locally in their community where they live?

Or is it some big global issue that, you know, it doesn't matter what I do anyway.

- Yeah.

It's at least 50% of people say yes.

- And this is a really interesting point where some of these perceptions, is climate change affecting my own community or is it worse than it used to be?

We see in the data that in many ways it's being interpreted through the prism of how concerned are you about climate?

If you're really concerned about climate, you're more inclined to say, "This is unusual.

This is different.

This is being caused by climate change."

If you're less concerned about climate, you're a bit more likely to say, "Well, this is severe weather that we've always had.

And I don't necessarily see it as being different or more severe than in the past."

- Right.

- Yeah.

- Do people connect energy policy and climate policy in the surveys you've done?

Do they see those links or not?

- Well, energy's interesting because as you say, it's intimately connected with the climate change conversation.

You ask folks, do you think it's a good idea to build more wind and solar in this country?

Pretty clear majority say, "Yeah, I like that.

That's a good idea.

That makes sense to me."

There may be multiple reasons they think this, domestic energy production, more power into the grid, maybe because they're really concerned about climate, maybe that's not a consideration for them.

But absolutely attitudes can differ on energy than on the overall level of concern about climate change.

- Interesting.

How do people see the politicians, corporations, are we doing enough to address climate change in the surveys?

- It's almost a majority of people think that we can be doing more.

So, there's- - Gotcha.

- And you know, that goes along with people's optimism that if we do more, that we can have an impact.

- Well, what I would add is it also depends who the actor is.

By and large, there's a sense that multiple actors could be doing more.

And the ones at the top of the list, corporations, energy companies, followed by government.

- Gotcha.

How do folks feel other individuals are doing when it comes to their particular efforts on climate?

- Yeah.

There's a little bit of maybe human psychology here.

But first of all, ordinary Americans, when we use that language, they rank lower down on the list.

There's a sense that they could be doing a bit more, but not to the same degree of those groups I just mentioned, like energy companies and corporations.

- Okay.

- Right?

And then you ask, what about, you know, you yourself, well, you yourself are doing just about the right amount.

- Okay.

I'm killing it.

- Now, to be- Yeah.

[all laughing] To be fair, the, the second most common response among folks is that they could be doing a bit more, but the plurality response, the most common response is that they think they're doing about right.

- Okay.

- And we don't wanna be too tough on our fellow American here, our respondents because there is a question of how much power or influence or responsibility do you bear to resolve a climate change issue.

And they're very reasonably folks point to these groups with more power, more influence, arguably more contributions to the issue than an individual industry.

- Interesting.

- It can also be a measure of people's exhaustion with it, right?

And so, older people, folks who are more conservative, seem to be a little bit more exhausted with it.

I'm doing as much as I can do.

And then younger people and Democrats tend to say, "I can do more."

- When people are asked if they'd be willing to pay something, a fee or tax or whatever in some form, did they say they'd be willing to do that?

- Depends on the topic.

If you ask people about, would they be willing to pay more to have their energy and their individual bill go to renewables, for example?

Those people tend to be willing to pay.

[Scott] Interesting.

- But there's a certain amount, right?

- Interesting.

- Well, on that point, one of the catalysts perhaps for the climate conversation is when everyday choices for Americans that are maybe climate-friendly choices or behaviors when they make pragmatic economical sense for them, right?

- Yeah.

How do people feel about taxing?

We've heard of lots of ways to put a price on carbon.

Carbon taxes is one of those.

What's the survey say about taxing emissions?

- Well, it depends who you're taxing, how you're taxing them, right?

But one example is large businesses and corporations.

There's a fair amount of support for the idea of taxing corporations based on their carbon emissions.

A majority of Americans support that idea in part because they see this as groups that are in ways contributing to the problem and groups that have the resources to help address it or certainly the power or ability to help address the issue.

- Interesting.

- In what tends to be perhaps a more popular approach is tax credits, right?

Tax credits for companies who develop carbon capture and storage technology.

Those are very popular.

- Gotcha.

- And what's even more popular is tax credits for individuals.

If you make your home more energy efficient and you get a tax credit for that.

- Yeah.

- Very popular idea.

[Scott] Did you guys survey around that much?

- It really depends on the language you use.

Credits are very popular.

Taxes are not so popular.

So, it really, really depends on the language we use surrounding this, whether people support it or they don't.

- You guys have conducted a lot of surveys.

[Scott chuckles] - Mm-hmm.

- What takeaways do you get just from that data themselves?

What are you seeing, Ashley?

- I think the most positive thing that I see in this is that U.S.

adults can understand these complex issues.

Policy makers can actually listen to people.

And that's what- - Right.

- That's what Alec and I do is we're trying to inform policy makers what people want.

- Same question, Alec, to you.

- Well, what we also do along with data is these in depth interviews.

We talk to people in depth about their views and their attitudes, and what I find inspiring or when you go into those conversations, just the stance of approaching people with openness and curiosity, no matter what the top line perspective is on a given survey answer, once you start to talk with folks, thoughtful, sensitive answers, openness to common ground, there's a lot of potential there.

- Yeah.

Nice.

Well, look, I've learned a ton and I really appreciate your willingness to come share your expertise and knowledge and decades of experience on the show with us today.

Scott Tinker, "Energy Switch."

Ashley, thanks so much.

- Thank you.

- Yeah, really nice to have you, Alec.

- Great to be here.

[Scott] Climate, our pollsters confirmed, is political.

In general, Democrats are concerned and want action.

Republicans recognize climate, but have questions on the role of government to address it.

For both, however, climate is not the leading issue, falling behind healthcare, immigration, and crime, and well behind the economy and affordability.

The leading issues for Americans and both parties.

Still, our pollsters found, that a majority agree on many things.

They believe climate change is happening and is at least partly caused by humans and remain hopeful that we can address it, that corporations could do more to reduce carbon emissions because they have the money and the means and that we should protect the natural environment.

Of course, having an opinion does not mean we understand the issue, but by recognizing public opinion and agreements, perhaps we can move toward middle ground climate policies that make sense for more Americans.

[upbeat music] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ [Narrator] Major funding provided by Arizona State University.

Home to the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Futures Laboratory, addressing critical challenges toward a future in which all living things thrive.

Arizona State, The New American University.