September 20, 2007 Contact: Jeff Navin (202) 588-0632

New Poll Finds Hurdles, Opportunity on Global Warming
Failure to Address Energy Anxiety Could Derail Global Warming Policies

NEW YORK -- A new poll on global warming released by the Nathan Cummings Foundation and the Breakthrough Institute shows hurdles for those advocating increasing the price of carbon to reduce global warming, but opportunity when solutions are centered around achieving energy independence, reducing the cost of clean energy, and creating new jobs. The poll follows a review of public opinion on energy and global warming released earlier this summer.

Lance Lindblom, President and CEO of the Nathan Cummings Foundation noted the importance of understanding the political environment while crafting public policy. "This poll demonstrates that getting the policy right means getting the politics right," Lindblom noted. "Elegant policy prescriptions that cannot generate the political support necessary won’t do anything to effectively address the challenges of global climate change.”

Among the survey's key findings:

• "Global warming" continues to rank low as a priority for Americans,
• Americans continue to be extremely anxious about the cost of energy,
• Messages about the potential catastrophic effects of global warming do not increase support for government action,
• Of the major global warming policy proposals, investment in clean technology is most popular.

Earlier this year, the Nathan Cummings Foundation and the Breakthrough Institute conducted a review of publicly available polling data that demonstrated a substantive problem for initiatives to increase the price of carbon: energy cost anxiety. Voters consistently rated energy costs as a higher concern than global warming, and resisted policies that would increase the cost of electricity and gasoline.

This survey jointly conducted by American Environics and EMC Research confirmed that analysis. Global warming ranked dead last of the 16 issues tested in the survey, trailing the cost of gas and electricity, dependence on foreign oil, and even “quality of the environment.” Voter concern over the cost of gas and electricity was evident in a number of question responses, from both a strong preference for proposals to lower the cost of clean energy (68%) over proposals designed to reduce consumption by making dirty energy more expensive (18%), to a majority opposing a carbon tax (58%) with 39% strongly opposing such an action.

The poll also divided the sample to observe the effects of various psychological primes on global warming public opinion, including using specific consequences of global warming expressed by the environmental community such as the movie An Inconvenient Truth. Telling voters about these consequences did not increase their desire to take action on global warming.

“Telling voters that global warming will lead to environmental disaster did not lead to increased support for action on global warming,” noted Dr. John Whaley who conducted the survey for American Environics. “In addition, when voters were told that specific proposals would lead to higher energy costs, support for policies to limit carbon dropped dramatically.”

“What I find particularly intriguing is that the vast majority of voters (70%) think the evidence is ‘solid’ that the earth is warming, but remain more concerned about deficits and crime, and nearly as concerned about taxes than they are about the climatic shift that will no doubt have a bigger effect on their lives and their children’s lives than any of those issues,” noted Alex Evans, Principal at EMC Research. “It is clear to me that scaring people is not the way to get them to act particularly when they display such a strong interest in clean energy and American ingenuity. Again, we find that American respond better when we appeal to their native optimism.”

Finally, the poll tested public support for a variety of global warming policy prescriptions. Voters expressed initial support for a variety of potential government actions, with support for an Apollo-type investment strategy scoring highest. However, when told of the potential costs of those programs, support dropped precipitously, with only the Apollo-type investment proposal retaining support from a majority of voters.

The survey tested a number of proposed policy prescriptions including a “Cap-and-Trade” program, the “Sky Trust” proposal, and an investment-centered “New Apollo” program. Respondents were then presented with likely arguments against each program to track shifts in opinion.

The investment-centered “New Apollo” program received more support than either Cap-and-Trade or Sky Trust proposals. Additionally, when voters were told of the negative consequences of each program (cost of energy for Cap-and-Trade and Sky Trust; tax and deficit implications of Apollo-type investments), Apollo was the only program to maintain majority support of the electorate (54%). Support for a Cap-and-Trade program fell from 62% to 46% when voters were told of the potential impact on energy prices.

“Voters remain extremely anxious about the cost of energy, and care more about energy costs than global warming,” noted Jeff Navin, a political analyst who worked on both this survey and the earlier review of public opinion. “Global warming proposals that can be framed as increasing the cost of gasoline and electricity will likely trigger tremendous backlash from an anxious electorate.”

The strong support for action to achieve energy independence, create new jobs, and lower the cost of renewable energy sources provides an opportunity to overcome voter anxiety over energy to confront global warming.

“The key to passing substantive limits on carbon emissions is to couple those limits with specific policies to make clean energy cheaper,” noted Navin. “Unless advocates can address the real anxiety Americans feel about the cost of energy, passing substantive limits on carbon emissions will prove extremely difficult.”

A memorandum from Dr. Whaley explaining the findings and a copy of the Energy Attitudes Report are attached. The poll was conducted August 26 – September 6, by American Environics and EMC Research for the Nathan Cummings Foundation and the Breakthrough Institute. The survey was conducted using a consisted of a national representative sample of It contains an overall sample size of 1,517 likely voters, with sub-samples of 600 and 300 voters. Margins of error are ± 4.0% and ± 5.7% for each of the sub-samples.

Downloads

The Nathan Cummings Global Warming Survey

Global Warming Poll Methodology