Abstract
The topics of climate change and renewable energy are often linked in policy discussions and scientific analysis, but public opinion on these topics exhibits both overlap and divergence. Although renewable energy has potentially broader acceptance than anthropogenic climate change, it can also face differently-based opposition. Analyses of US and regional surveys, including time series of repeated surveys in New Hampshire (2010–2018) and northeast Oregon (2011–2018), explore the social bases and trends of public views on both issues. Political divisions are prominent, although somewhat greater regarding climate change due to substantive differences and more partisan opposition. Regarding climate change and to a lesser extent renewable energy, political divisions tends to widen with education. There also are robust age and temporal effects: younger adults more often prioritize renewable energy development, and agree with scientists on the reality of anthropogenic climate change (ACC). Across all age groups and both regional series, support for renewable energy and recognition of ACC have been gradually rising. Contrary to widespread speculation, these trends have not visibly responded to events such as the US hurricanes of 2012, 2017 or 2018. Together with age-cohort replacement and the potential for changes in age-group voting participation, however, the gradual trends suggest that public pressure for action on these issues could grow.
Highlights
The topics of climate change and renewable energy are often linked in policy discussions and scientific analysis
Mitigation of increasingly severe impacts from anthropogenic climate change (ACC) will require steep reductions in fossil fuel burning, and corresponding shifts to energy from renewable sources that produce less greenhouse gases—such as electricity generated by wind, solar or tidal power
How similar or different are the social bases of support for renewable-energy development, compared with those for concern about climate change? Is public opinion shifting on both topics? In a recent paper we explored these questions using data from four US survey projects—three regional and one national in scope
Summary
The topics of climate change and renewable energy are often linked in policy discussions and scientific analysis. The perceived impacts of large-scale energy developments such as wind farms can inspire local opposition from people who otherwise might support action on climate change.[5][6][7][8][9][10] renewable energy has potentially broader appeal, but sometimes broader-based opposition, compared with public concern about climate change. Scientists who study this topic express overwhelming agreement that humans are changing Earth’s climate.[11][12] Among US political leaders and public, on the other hand, partisan divisions remain wide. Extended timelines broadly confirm earlier results, while enabling new analyses including tests for public-opinion impacts from the disastrous hurricane seasons of 2017 and 2018, detailed breakdowns that find similarities in the 2018 social profiles of renewable-energy and climate views in two different regions, comparisons of trend lines for different age groups across each issue and each region, and more precise estimates of interactions as well as distinct age and trend effects
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