Despite New Policies and Rising Temperatures, American Opinions on Climate Stay the Course
💡 What’s the story?
As Americans prepare to vote this fall, climate change will factor into many voters’ decisions at the polls. But amid rising global temperatures and a slew of new federal climate policies, how could climate opinions inform the national conversation? A new survey by researchers at Stanford University, Resources for the Future (RFF), and survey research group ReconMR is working to help answer this question.
The survey, Climate Insights 2024: American Understanding of Climate Change, is the first installment in a series of reports to be released throughout the summer that details American opinions on climate change. The initial report outlines Americans’ thoughts on topics ranging from trust in climate science to solar-powered electricity, putting the past several years’ worth of climate policies, extreme weather, and partisan divides in a new light.
The survey finds that considerable majorities of Americans believe in climate change and recognize the need to mitigate its threats to society. However, despite increasing engagement in the issue, these majorities have not grown larger over the past two and a half decades.
Author Perspective
“Americans are incredibly consistent in their understanding of climate change. While this consistency is notable, it’s a pattern that we see on many other issues, such as gun control and reproductive rights. Americans are concerned about climate change and most Americans support dealing with this issue, which they believe is a threat.”
—Jon Krosnick, Stanford University professor and RFF university fellow
📊 What are some key findings?
- Most Americans—75 percent—believe that the world’s temperature has been increasing over the past 100 years. This is lower than the 83 percent who said so in 2020 but is comparable to the 76 percent observed in 2018.
- 21 percent of Americans consider climate change to be extremely important to them. These people make up the “issue public,” the subset of Americans who will vote and make decisions based on climate change. The change in this figure from 2020 to today is not statistically significant.
- Some Americans seem to recognize recent federal efforts to bolster climate policy: in 2020, 44 percent of Americans said the federal government was doing at least a moderate amount to deal with climate change, whereas 51 percent of Americans believe that now.
- A vast majority of Americans support wind and solar power. However, over the past 10 years, American support for solar- and wind-powered electricity has dropped. Between 2013 and 2024, support for solar power fell from 91 percent to 83 percent. Support for wind power dropped from 84 percent to 70 percent.
- Fewer Americans trust what scientists say about the environment compared to 2020. Four years ago, 75 percent of Americans trusted scientists at least a moderate amount; in 2024, that figure fell to 67 percent.
- Americans who believe that climate change has been occurring are more certain than ever—68 percent of Americans who believe that the earth has been warming are highly certain of that fact. On the flip side, Americans who do not believe in the existence of climate change are less certain; highly certain skepticism decreased from 43 percent in 2020 to 37 percent in 2024.
These are just a few highlights from the report; more results about what Americans think about the fundamentals of climate change, its threat to society, issue engagement, desired effort to deal with warming, personal observations of climate change, and more appear in the report.
📝 What is Climate Insights?
The Climate Insights survey is the result of a longstanding polling partnership led by researchers at Stanford University and RFF. This series examines American public opinion on issues related to climate change through rigorous national surveys of random samples of American adults. This year’s reports represent a survey of 1,000 American adults who were interviewed between October 16, 2023, and February 23, 2024, by the survey research firm ReconMR.
Several more reports will be released through the summer and will cover topics such as American opinions on environmental justice, climate policies, areas of partisan agreement, and more.
The last batch of reports was released during the summer and fall of 2020.
📚 Where can I learn more?
For more information, read the report, Climate Insights 2024: American Understanding of Climate Change, by Jon A. Krosnick (Stanford University and RFF) and Bo MacInnis (Stanford University). Use our interactive data tool to explore the survey findings in more detail.
You can hear more of Krosnick’s thoughts on the survey series and this report’s findings in this short video.
Stay tuned for more installments in this survey series.
Resources for the Future (RFF) is an independent, nonprofit research institution in Washington, DC. Its mission is to improve environmental, energy, and natural resource decisions through impartial economic research and policy engagement. RFF is committed to being the most widely trusted source of research insights and policy solutions leading to a healthy environment and a thriving economy.
Unless otherwise stated, the views expressed here are those of the individual authors and may differ from those of other RFF experts, its officers, or its directors. RFF does not take positions on specific legislative proposals.
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