US public still favours action on climate change despite Trump’s fossil fuel drive | Climate crisis
US political and media discourse has shifted away from the climate crisis amid Donald Trump’s frontal assault on policies to limit global warming and the president’s combative demands to “drill, baby, drill” for more oil and gas.
But as elites’ interest in climate declines, between While some Democrats who have previously been vocal against criticism of fossil fuels that are overheating our planet have pushed back, the American public remains concerned about the climate crisis and continues to support action to tackle it, experts and polls show.
“The 2024 election was not a referendum on climate change; Americans believe in climate change, are concerned about climate change, and support action on climate change,” said Anthony Leiserowitz, director of Yale University’s climate communications program. “This situation did not change before, during or after the election.”
Nearly two-thirds of Americans say they’re worried about the climate crisis, according to Yale’s long-running climate survey foundThis rate remains consistent even as other issues such as the Iran war and inflation dominate news cycles.
But people in the USA hear and read less about climate change As media coverage narrows down on the issue, despite increasing heat waves, droughts and other impacts plaguing parts of the country. Media outlets like the Washington Post, NPR, and CBS have also cut positions for climate journalists.
“Voting priorities haven’t changed much in terms of climate, but other issues like the Iran war have jumped over that, and the lack of media coverage means people aren’t hearing or talking about it as much,” Leiserowitz said.
“There’s a spiral of climate silence. I’ve even heard some climate group leaders say ‘don’t talk about climate change’. I don’t know why they made that decision; there’s absolutely no evidence that people care about it any less than they do.”
A majority of US voters now attribute the rising costs of their lives to the climate crisis, according to Yale to createDespite this lack of coverage, global dependence on oil has caused gasoline costs to rise as the Iran war drags on.
Meanwhile, Trump’s faltering attempts to halt renewable energy projects and increase oil, gas and coal production are also unpopular with the American public, despite some assuming that embracing fossil fuels is mainstream.
“I proudly tell you that we will try to ensure that no windmills are built in the United States of America,” Trump said in March. The president, who denies the reality of climate change, has previously called clean energy the “hoax of the century” and blocked wind and solar projects. rejected by the courts.
This month the administration distributed $700 million to support coal-fired power plants, the leading source of emissions that cause deadly air pollution and warm the planet.
But just 7% of American voters say they would support a candidate who advocates reducing the use of renewable energy, according to Yale’s poll, while just 14% want a candidate who pushes for more fossil fuels.
“The president’s perspective is not shared by most Americans and even most conservative Republicans,” Leiserowitz said.
“This war on renewables is not shared even by its own base. The climate in the United States is still very polarized. But overall, Americans have a positive view of clean energy and a very negative view of fossil fuel energy, which they see as dirty and polluting.”
Despite its worsening effects, the climate crisis has rarely been a headline-grabbing political issue in the United States, and progress on combating global warming has been uneven; Since landmark climate legislation under Joe Biden has been unraveled by Republicans in Congress. Trump also fired climate scientists and withdrew the United States from international climate agreements.
But rising temperatures are already taking a serious toll on Americans’ health and bank accounts through severe heat, wildfire smoke, and storms. Research As of earlier this year, it was revealed that US households are paying between $400 and $900 more each year due to the effects of the climate crisis, with costs rising to over $1,300 in some counties in states such as California, Louisiana and Florida.
“The status quo has many negative consequences for American households,” said Kimberly Clausing, an economist at the UCLA School of Law and a co-author of the study, adding that home insurance rates and, less obviously, healthcare costs are accelerating due to the climate crisis.
“If you live on the Gulf Coast or in rural America, you would have to go out to lunch to not realize how climate change is truly impacting you,” he said. “But if you live in Chicago or Boston, that can be harder to accomplish on a day-to-day basis. People often can’t connect the dots, making it harder for policymakers to respond.”
Political wisdom that Biden’s climate policies are unpopular will likely deter any reversal on the issue anytime soon, despite the polling, Clausing said.
“People on the left know it’s a problem and they worry about it, but ‘why talk about it if I want to win elections?’ “They think,” he said. “The last guy did it, did something about it and then this happened [election defeat]. “It’s hard for politicians to get excited about this right now.”
