This post includes climate and environment headlines, data points, and key takeaways from recent public polls - including new polling on the climate-related provisions in the White House budget proposal, new polling on environmentally responsible investing, and new polling on the EPA’s proposed soot standards.

Voters want to see stronger clean air standards from the EPA, with annual and daily soot limits that meet the recommendations of the EPA’s scientific advisors. Voters reject the argument that stricter standards would hurt the economy and drive up energy prices. By a 74%-16% margin, voters support the EPA updating air pollution standards by placing stricter limits on soot. After learning that the EPA’s proposed new soot standards are not as strict as the standards recommended by the EPA’s scientific advisors, voters support moving to the stricter standards recommended by the EPA’s scientific advisors by a 65%-20% margin.

Voters support all of the major climate-related provisions in President Biden’s budget proposal. 62% of voters support President Biden’s proposal to invest $24 billion dollars in community climate resilience against floods, wildfires and storms. 61% of voters support President Biden’s proposed investments to help address climate change, such as measures to create clean energy jobs, fund climate research and strengthen communities affected by natural disasters related to climate change. 53% of voters support President Biden’s proposed investments to help meet the White House goal of cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 50%-52% by 2030.

Most recently, about 1 in 4 (26%) Americans are "Alarmed" about climate change. They outnumber the "Dismissive" (11%) by more than 2 to 1. Since the last Six Americas report, the "Alarmed" segment has decreased by 7 percentage points (from 33% in September 2021), however, the majority of Americans (53%) are still either "Alarmed" or "Concerned," while fewer than half that number (22%) are either "Doubtful" or "Dismissive."

This post includes climate and environment headlines, data points, and key takeaways from recent public polls - including polling about people’s willingness to talk about climate change, new polling on the East Palestine disaster, and a new industry-funded poll in New York State about the state’s Climate Act and residential gas.

By a 53%-38% margin, voters support their state investing public retirement funds in assets related to clean energy like wind and solar power. 48% of people have not heard enough about “ESG investing” to have an opinion on it—30% support it and 22% oppose it.

Polling commissioned by oil and gas companies shows that New Yorkers support climate action and want to phase out residential gas. 74% of New Yorkers support the state “aggressively moving to reduce greenhouse gas emissions”. 65% of New Yorkers support the goal of having 1 to 2 million New York homes heated with electric heat pumps rather than natural gas or oil-fueled furnaces by 2030. 65% of New Yorkers support the goal of electrifying 85% of New York homes and commercial buildings with electric heat pumps by 2050.

This post includes climate and environment headlines, data points, and key takeaways from recent public polls - including new polling on the East Palestine disaster and railroad safety, new polling on permitting reform and grid expansion, and new polling on the causes that voters blame for high gas prices.

Voters overwhelmingly want to make it easier to build new power lines in the United States, but are not as enthusiastic about new fossil fuel projects. 72% of Americans support reducing the amount of time it takes to approve new interstate power lines, including 74% of Democrats and 74% of Republicans. 75% support new power lines, versus just 55% who support new fossil fuel projects.

After 6 months since the Inflation Reduction Act’s (IRA) passage, 46,400 new jobs in electric vehicle (EV) production have been announced. This is in addition to the 48,000 new jobs announced between passage of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) (November 2021) and the Inflation Reduction Act (August 2022). From 2015 through November 2021, just 48,600 jobs had been announced. Therefore, two-thirds of all EV jobs announced since 2015 have come since passage of BIL and IRA. State leaders in total EV jobs announced include Georgia (19,400), Tennessee (18, 300), and Michigan (16,300). EV manufacturing capacity has increased 10x from 2021 to 2022 and is projected to increase 8x more from 2022 to 2026. Battery manufacturing capacity in the U.S. is also projected to skyrocket.