Climate change slips as voter priority since last election
Plus, new UK government's climate ambitions to be tested at COP29.
In today’s edition:
— Climate change slipped as a voter priority this election cycle from 2020
— The new UK government’s painful first budget this week will test its climate ambitions
— UN warns global temps could soar by 3.1°C by end of century at current pace
— North Carolina says private wells serving 300,000 people were flooded, contaminated by Hurricane Helene
— Poll across 63 countries finds 86% of people see climate change as a real concern
Yale and George Mason University have tracked global warming as a voting priority in each presidential and midterm election since 2014. They find that in 2024, 39% of registered voters overall say that global warming is a “very important” issue for their vote.
After a decade of rising extreme heat, stronger storms and raging wildfires across the Western U.S., we’d expect that more registered voters would list climate change as an important issue this election cycle, and a new report from Yale and George Mason University — broken down by party preference — shows just that.
But the interesting thing about the report, the results of which are shown in chart form above, is that it appears that the numbers have slipped some since peaking during the Biden-Trump election four years ago. While 39% of overall registered voters said climate change is an important issue, up from 32% from the midterms in 2014, the numbers are just a bit off the peak of 43% in 2020.
Researchers said in the report they characterize both 2020 and 2024 numbers as four in 10 voters, suggesting the slippage falls are statistically insignificant. They said the issue of climate change ranks about 19th most important this year for all voters, the same level it did in 2020.
That slippage becomes more pronounced the farther left you go on the political spectrum, however, with almost no change at all at the very right extreme of Conservative Republicans, locked at an unimpressive 8%.
Part of the reasoning could be that Covid was still raging in 2020, and people were more concerned about survival of all kinds, including the idea that global warming had contributed to the rise of Covid. Another reason could be that the past four years have seen a surge in anti-climate politics, particularly in red states, which might be influencing poll results.
A third reason may be that after four years of President Joe Biden’s climate fighting policies, such as the Inflation Reduction Act, people are more relaxed about the direction we’ve been going, though the researchers said only about half of respondents to the survey had even heard of the IRA.
But whatever the reason, it’s noteworthy as we head into another election with climate change more polarizing than it’s ever been, and where every point matters. . . .
Don’t forget to contact me directly if you have suggestions or ideas dcallaway@callawayclimateinsights.com.
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New UK government’s climate ambitions to be tested at COP29
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