Report · Jan 14, 2021
Politics & Global Warming, December 2020
By Anthony Leiserowitz, Edward Maibach, Seth Rosenthal, John Kotcher, Jennifer Carman, Xinran Wang, Matthew Goldberg, Karine Lacroix and Jennifer Marlon
Filed under: Policy & Politics
1. Global Warming and Clean Energy as Government Priorities
1.1. Most Democrats think global warming should be a “high” or “very high” priority for the president and Congress.
Large majorities of liberal Democrats (86%) and moderate/conservative Democrats (72%) think global warming should be a high or very high priority for the president and Congress, as do half of Independents (50%, see Data Tables). Relatively few liberal/moderate Republicans (38%) or conservative Republicans (12%) think so.
Over the past five years (since October 2015), the percentage of liberal Democrats who think global warming should be a high or very high priority for the president and Congress has increased by 12 percentage points and the percentage of moderate/conservative Democrats who think so has increased by 17 percentage points.
1.2. Most registered voters think developing sources of clean energy should be a “high” or “very high” priority for the president and Congress.
About nine in ten liberal Democrats (93%), eight in ten moderate/conservative Democrats (81%), and about six in ten Independents (64%, see Data Tables) and liberal/moderate Republicans (58%) think developing sources of clean energy should be a high or very high priority for the president and Congress. About one in three conservative Republicans (32%) think so.
Overall, Democrats think both global warming (79%; see Data Tables) and developing sources of clean energy (87%) should be high priorities for the president and Congress. In contrast, Republicans are more likely to think clean energy should be a priority (43%) than to think global warming should be a priority (23%).
