As images of melting runways, buckling railroad tracks and raging wildfires consumed the world’s attention this week, Americans were left at a dead end over how to slow climate change, which scientists say is responsible for much of the extreme weather we’re seeing.
The collapse of US President Joe Biden’s climate plan – which would have pumped about $300 billion in tax incentives into the renewable energy sector, subsidized the purchase of electric vehicles and accelerated efforts to halve the nation’s carbon emissions by 2030 – highlighted the polarization that still exists when it comes to prioritizing climate issues.
A research conducted by the Pew Research Center in May found that 49 percent of Americans say the Biden administration’s climate change policies are moving the country in the right direction, while 47 percent say the opposite.
And while the majority of Americans may agree that the climate is changing, they don’t always agree on what’s driving that change and what to do about it.
An aerial view shows destroyed homes in a flooded area of Montagut, Louisiana, after Hurricane Ida made landfall in Louisiana in August 2021. Nearly three-quarters of Americans said they experienced at least one extreme weather event in the past year, according to a Pew Research survey Center. (Marco Bello/Reuters)
Along with political divisions, Democratic progress on the climate issue has been undermined by the fact that, at a time of painfully high gas prices and inflation exceeding nine percent, voters in both parties do not see it as a top priority.
“Climate change continues to rank far behind inflation and gun violence as an issue of great concern to Americans,” said Tim Malloy, an analyst with the Quinnipiac University Poll, which tracks voter sentiment.
“It remains an uphill battle to get Americans to focus on what experts say is a clear and present danger.”
Quinnipiac and other recent surveys rank climate change behind inflation, gun violence, immigration and election integrity as the most pressing issues facing the country. A CNN poll Taken between June 13 and July 13, it found that even among Democratic-leaning voters, climate change ranked fourth among the issues respondents wanted to see addressed in November’s midterm elections.
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“The bottom line is inflation”
That’s the sentiment centrist Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin tapped into when he failed to support his party’s climate plan last week, ensuring its defeat if it went to the US Senate, which control is evenly split between Democrats and Republicans.
“At the end of the day, it’s inflation,” the West Virginia lawmaker told reporters earlier this week. “I worry about the person who can’t feed his family, who can’t put gas in his car to go to work, and has a hard time paying his utility bills … I worry about that more than anything else.”
Manny Villa thinks voters may change their tune in November. The North Carolina native, who was visiting Washington, D.C., this week says his home state has seen more days above 32C this summer than usual — and similar unusual weather patterns across the country are drawing public attention.
Manny Villa of North Carolina, pictured on Capitol Hill, says he thinks the intense heat many parts of the US are experiencing will push climate change higher on people’s priorities by the time the midterm elections roll around in November. (CBC)
“I think climate change is going to have a bigger impact on the vote after this summer when we had record heat,” he told the CBC’s Katie Simpson. “The economy will probably be the biggest impact, but climate change has to be up there.”
He would like to see more investment in wind, solar and nuclear power and more tax credits for residential solar, he said. “Anything they can do to increase the use of that.”
The rate of energy transition separates
How quickly to transition away from fossil fuels is a polarizing issue in the US
Eighty-two percent of Republicans and Republican-leaning voters say they oppose phasing out new gas-powered vehicles by 2035, while 65 percent of Democrats and Democratic-leaning voters , say they support it, according to Pew research.
Daniel Brooks, 42, is firmly in the camp that thinks Biden’s attempt to accelerate the transition away from fossil fuels is too fast. The Tate County, Miss., row crop farmer said he opposes Biden shutting down the Keystone XL pipeline and the potential jobs that would come with it.
“We’re so dependent on fossil fuels and we’re not yet efficient enough with our solar, wind and electric power that we can all switch to that immediately,” he said as he and his wife and two children posed for pictures in front of White House this week. “It will have to be a slower transition.”
A driver pumps gas in Lynnfield, Mass., this week. Americans disagree on how quickly to divest from fossil fuels. (Joseph Prezioso/AFP/Getty Images)
Like majority of Americans, Brooks does support using more renewable energy sources like wind and solar.
“I farm and use a lot of fuel and I agree that we should be good stewards of our energy and oil, but I disagree [with] the way we do it,” Brooks said.
“I think just cutting things out immediately is not the answer.”
Republicans and Democrats do agree on some policies like planting trees to absorb carbon emissions and giving tax credits to businesses for carbon capture and storage, but they differ on fossil fuels, with 76 percent of Republicans favoring more oil and offshore gas drilling, compared to 27 percent of Democrats.
Although no Republicans in the House or Senate supported Biden’s climate bill, younger Republicans support some federal climate action, such as incentives for hybrid and electric vehicles and requiring energy companies to use more renewable energy , said Kerry Funk, Pew’s director of science and community research.
Meanwhile, younger Democrats say even the policies that failed to pass Congress don’t go far enough.
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Most have experienced extreme weather
The Pew survey found that a majority of Americans (71 percent) say their community has experienced extreme weather in the past year, such as droughts, floods or unusual heat waves. Whether or not they link these events to climate change can determine whether or not they support policies to address them.
Interventions to stop climate change are still seen by many Americans as bad for the economy, says Samata Gross, director of the Energy Security and Climate Initiative at the Brookings Institution in Washington.
“I feel like we’re missing the fact that unchecked climate change is terrible for the economy,” she said. “I’m disappointed that we’re not thinking ahead … We’ve focused on the costs, not the benefits.”
Anthony Harris wipes sweat from his face during a heat warning in San Antonio, Texas, Tuesday. (Lisa Kranz/Reuters)
Although Biden pledged Wednesday to “not take no for an answer” and use his executive powers to push his climate agenda, Gross fears the U.S. has missed its chance to pass federal legislation beyond the INVEST Act. infrastructure and employment passed last year, which expanded funding for clean energy technologies and infrastructure.
While states can make their own laws, there are areas where federal standards can make a difference, Gross said.
“Transportation is the largest emitting sector in the U.S., and a lot of transportation stuff is federally mandated, like fuel efficiency standards,” she said. “Also, things like cap and trade … if you really want an economy-wide carbon price that allows trade-offs between sectors, that’s a federal thing.”
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Some states are not waiting for federal action
Federal legislation can also be more difficult to overturn than at the state level, Gross said, although the recent EPA Decision the reduction of federal limits on emissions from power plants shows that this is not always the case.
In Manchin’s home state of West Virginia, for example, Republicans this year tried, but failed, to repeal the Virginia Clean Economy Act, which Democrats introduced two years earlier, which required utilities to decarbonize by 2050. Mr.
Manchin has cited high utility bills as one of the reasons he is unwilling to support funding for ambitious climate initiatives, but James Van Nostrand, director of the Center for Energy and Sustainability at West Virginia University, says it’s the state’s reluctance to accelerate the adoption of cheaper renewable energy that hurts the very people the senator claims to protect.
Steam rises from a pile of coal at a mine in Bishop, West Virginia. Many coal mines in West Virginia have closed, but coal still powers most of the state’s electricity generation, according to 2020 data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration. (Brian Snyder/Reuters)
“Our utility rates are rising faster than other states in the country because we continue to burn…
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