Roger Caiazza
According to Pew Research, Americans still want renewable energy, but support is waning.
Pew Research Center June 27, 2024
How Americans View National, Local and Personal Energy Choices
Most Americans want more renewable energy, but support has declined. Interest in electric vehicles has also waned
By Alec Tyson and Brian Kennedy
The planet’s ongoing record heat has prompted calls for action from scientists and global leaders. Meanwhile, in the United States, energy development policy is being debated at the national and local levels in this election year. How do Americans feel about US energy policy choices, and what steps do they want to take in their own lives to reduce carbon emissions? A new Pew Research Center survey takes a look.
Among the main findings:
There is a decrease in the depth of support for wind and solar power. Shares favoring the development of solar and wind farms fell 12 percentage points and 11 points, respectively, from 2020, driven by support among Republicans.
Interest in electric vehicle (EV) purchases is lower than a year ago. Today, 29% of Americans say they will consider an EV for their next purchase, down from 38% in 2023.
However, a majority of Americans (63%) support the US goal of taking steps to become carbon neutral by 2050. When asked which is a bigger priority, more Americans continue to say that the country should focus on developing renewable energy sources rather than fossil fuel sources (65% vs. 34%).
The survey, conducted May 13-19 among 8,638 US adults, found a fairly modest share of US adults (25%) say it is very important for them to limit their own “carbon footprint”. Far more give this middling or low priority.
The findings illustrate how America’s share of renewable energy production will reduce overall carbon emissions. However, this general orientation does not necessarily translate into a strong commitment to reducing personal carbon emissions or an interest in purchasing EVs.
Read more: https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2024/06/27/how-americans-view-national-local-and-personal-energy-choices/
Maybe it’s just me but the lead sentence claiming that the hot record is spurring action smacks of bias. I checked the description of how they conducted the survey to see if my concerns were addressed:
The Pew Research Center conducted this study to understand Americans’ opinions on energy issues. For this analysis, we surveyed 8,638 US adults from May 13 to 19, 2024.
Everyone who participated in the survey was a member of the Center’s American Trends Panel (ATP), an online survey panel recruited through a national, random sampling of home addresses. This way, almost all US adults have the opportunity to vote. The survey is considered representative of the US adult population by gender, race, ethnicity, partisan affiliation, education and other categories. Read more about the ATP methodology.
Here are the questions used for this report, along with the responses, and the Methodology.
The questions used for the survey are not very biased. Nothing like “To save the planet from impending doom, would you choose a solar farm?” My only reservation is that the question is part of a larger survey, so it’s not clear if the previous question is pumping up the climate impact alarm. Another point is that the methodology differs from most surveys. Instead of a telephone survey, the Pew Research Center has created the American Trends Panel “a nationally representative panel of randomly selected US adults who participated via a self-administered web survey.” I am not of the opinion that this affects the results of the survey.
Instead of just presenting the results of the survey, the Pew website description addresses the question of what is behind the support for wind and solar.
The decline in public support for renewable energy has been driven by Republicans and Republican-leaning independents, whose support began to decline sharply after President Joe Biden took office in early 2020.
- 64% of Republicans say they favor solar panel farms, down from 84% in 2020.
- 56% of Republicans say they favor wind turbine farms, a 19-point drop from 2020.
Over the same period, views among Democrats and Democrats on the measures have shifted slightly, with large majorities continuing to support wind and solar development.
In some cases, the gap between Republicans and Democrats on energy policy now approaches a very wide partisan divide over the importance of climate change.
In May 2020, Democrats were 26 points more likely than Republicans to say the country’s top priority should be developing renewable energy (91% vs. 65%). Four years later, that gap has grown to 49 points, thanks to a near-total shift among Republicans — 61% of whom now say developing fossil fuels like oil, coal and natural gas should be a higher priority.
However, the author admits that it is not only political affiliation:
But the change in Attitude about the policy that will reduce carbon emissions is not the only result of other negative views among the Republicans. For example, the share of Democrats who said they would consider an EV for their next car purchase has dropped from 56% to 45% in the past year. And the share of Democrats who call climate change a big problem for the US has dropped from 71% in 2021 to 58% today.
The New York Climate Leadership & Community Protection Act (Climate Act) mandates sweeping changes to New Yorkers’ energy choices that require action now. I have followed the Climate Act since it was first proposed, submitted comments on the Climate Act’s implementation plans, and have written more than 400 articles on New York’s net-zero transition. One of the conclusions I came to based on my work and discussions with others that share my concerns is that the majority of New Yorkers don’t know what to do.
National mandate and potential impact is much less close, I believe that a large part of the decline in the support of wind and solar increased knowledge. The survey included more detailed questions about solar development – Will solar development make the landscape unattractive, take up more space, generate more taxes, and lower the price you pay for electricity. I believe that answering these questions requires personal knowledge and in my personal experience only a few years ago I saw the development of solar. After seeing them, I doubt many will think they are attractive and don’t need a lot of space. The more people have the lower the knowledge in my opinion.
The survey also addresses electric vehicles.
Amid a major policy push at the federal level for electric vehicles, Americans are not enthusiastic about measures that would phase out gas-powered vehicles.
In March of this year, the Biden administration announced rules aimed at dramatically expanding EV sales. Overall, 58% of Americans say they oppose the rule that would make EVs at least half of all new cars and trucks sold in the US by 2032. Republicans strongly oppose this policy (83%). Among Democrats, 64% support the rule to boost EV sales, while 35% say they oppose it.
To support my belief that knowledge leads to skeptical concern, note the following results for questions about EV reliability:
As more and more people hear about the electric vehicle experience, the reality of the technology problem becomes real.
The survey also included questions about personal carbon footprints.
Discussions about reducing carbon emissions often include everyday actions people can take to reduce the amount of energy they use. One-in-four Americans say it is very or very important to them to limit their own “carbon footprint.” A larger share said that this is somewhat (42%) or not very or not at all (32%) important to them.
There is one important aspect of energy choices that is not included in the survey. What about the cost? Follow-up questions for wind and solar development included questions asking whether respondents thought the development would lower electricity prices. There are also questions about the cost of electric vehicles to purchase and refuel. Nothing about the overall cost. I haven’t seen any polls that show that people are willing to pay that much for an energy transition forced down our throats.
The description of the survey states that “a large share of America produces renewable energy that will reduce overall carbon emissions.” It also acknowledges that “this general orientation does not necessarily translate into a strong commitment to reducing personal carbon emissions or an interest in buying EVs”. If the willingness to pay aspect has been incorporated into the poll, I have no doubt that support for wind and solar will drop significantly. I believe that the more people are aware of the cost of renewable energy, the less support will be given to the inevitable results.
Roger Caiazza blogs about New York’s energy and environmental issues at New York’s Pragmatic Environmentalist. It represents his opinion and not the opinion of his previous employer or other company he was associated with.
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