75% of Americans Support Regulating CO2; 60% Support Carbon Tax

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Something I often think and try to often convey is that there is a huge disconnect between what Republican voters actually want and what Republican politicians push and allow. The vast majority of Americans support clean energy, support reducing pollution, and support fighting global warming, including a very large percentage of Republican voters. Somehow, though, Republican politicians have turned these things into enemy #1 (perhaps due to the fact that they get a ton of their campaign money and all kinds of other nice perks from oil and coal companies).

In yet another national poll, we see that Republican voters, in fact, don’t hate clean energy and aren’t opposed to strong action to fight global warming — in fact, they’re for these things. They’re for energy subsidies for clean energy, they’re for regulations and even taxes on dirty energy, and they even realize that environmental regulations help the economy.

The new national poll from the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication and the George Mason University Center for Climate Change Communication found that a whopping 75% of Americans support “regulating carbon dioxide (the primary greenhouse gas) as a pollutant.” And 79% support tax incentives for buying energy-efficient cars and solar panels. 73% support a national clean energy standard of at least 20%. Why don’t we have these things?!

Here are some more details via Climate Progress (some of which are represented in the charts throughout this article):

  • 63 percent of Americans support “signing an international treaty that requires the United States to cut its emissions of carbon dioxide 90 percent by the year 2050“!
  • By a margin of 3 to 1 — 61 percent to 20 percent — Americans say they would be more likely to vote for a political candidate who supports a “revenue neutral” tax shift, increasing taxes on fossil fuels, and reducing the federal income tax by an equal amount.
  • 61 percent said they support holding the fossil fuel industry responsible for “hidden costs we pay for citizens who get sick from polluted air and water, military costs to maintain access to foreign oil, and the environmental costs of spills and accidents.”
  • By 3 to 1 — 58 percent to 17 percent — Americans say “protecting the environment … improves economic growth and provides new jobs” vs those who say it “reduces economic growth and costs jobs.”
  • Asked “When there is a conflict between environmental protection and economic growth, which do you think is more important?” an amazing 62 percent supported “protecting the environment, even if it reduces economic growth” vs. 38 percent who backed “Economic growth, even if it leads to environmental problems.”


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Zachary Shahan

Zach is tryin' to help society help itself one word at a time. He spends most of his time here on CleanTechnica as its director, chief editor, and CEO. Zach is recognized globally as an electric vehicle, solar energy, and energy storage expert. He has presented about cleantech at conferences in India, the UAE, Ukraine, Poland, Germany, the Netherlands, the USA, Canada, and Curaçao. Zach has long-term investments in Tesla [TSLA], NIO [NIO], Xpeng [XPEV], Ford [F], ChargePoint [CHPT], Amazon [AMZN], Piedmont Lithium [PLL], Lithium Americas [LAC], Albemarle Corporation [ALB], Nouveau Monde Graphite [NMGRF], Talon Metals [TLOFF], Arclight Clean Transition Corp [ACTC], and Starbucks [SBUX]. But he does not offer (explicitly or implicitly) investment advice of any sort.

Zachary Shahan has 7324 posts and counting. See all posts by Zachary Shahan