Report · May 8, 2018
Politics & Global Warming, March 2018
By Anthony Leiserowitz, Edward Maibach, Connie Roser-Renouf, Seth Rosenthal, Matthew Cutler and John Kotcher
Filed under: Policy & Politics
1. The Politics of Global Warming Beliefs
1.1. Most registered voters think global warming is happening.
Nearly three in four registered voters (73%) think global warming is happening. This includes nearly all liberal Democrats (95%), about nine in ten moderate/conservative Democrats (88%), and a majority of liberal/moderate Republicans (68%, five percentage points higher than in October 2017; see Data Tables). In contrast, fewer than half of conservative Republicans (40%) think global warming is happening.
1.2. A majority of registered voters think global warming is caused by human activities.
About six in ten registered voters (59%) think global warming is caused mostly by human activities, the highest percentage since our surveys began in 2008 and five percentage points higher than in October 2017 (see Data Tables). This includes a large majority of liberal Democrats (84%). Seven in ten moderate/conservative Democrats (70%) also think global warming is mostly human-caused.
More than half of liberal/moderate Republicans (55%) think global warming is caused mostly by human activities, an increase of 14 percentage points since October 2017. Only one in four conservative Republicans (26%) think global warming is mostly human-caused, but that is a five-point increase since October 2017.
1.3. A majority of registered voters are worried about global warming.
A majority of registered voters (63%) are “very” or “somewhat” worried about global warming. This includes large majorities of liberal Democrats (88%, a decrease of six percentage points since October 2017; see Data Tables) and moderate/conservative Democrats (76%, a four-point decrease).
More than half of liberal/moderate Republicans (58%) are worried about global warming (an increase of three percentage points since October 2017 and 15 percentage points since May 2017). Only three in ten conservative Republicans (30%) are worried about global warming, but that is seven percentage points higher than in our previous survey in October 2017.
