Survey shows more Americans worried about cost of fighting climate change
Survey shows more Americans worried about cost of fighting climate change
Most Americans support government action on climate change, but a growing minority worry it will harm the economy, according to survey data from Stanford University and Resources for the Future. The survey on Americans’ attitudes toward climate action has been repeated since 1997.
This year’s survey found 36% of respondents thought climate action would harm the economy. That’s up from 29% four years ago. The jump could be linked to an overall rise in Americans’ concerns about the economy, said Jon Krosnick, lead author and a professor of communication and political science at Stanford University.
“Between our 2020 survey and 2024 has been plenty of COVID and there has been economic disruption,” he said.
Also in that period: a pretty good test case for how addressing climate change actually does affect the economy. The Inflation Reduction Act, passed in 2022, invests hundreds of billions of dollars in climate-friendly technologies.
And that’s led to announcements for dozens of new factories to make batteries, solar panels and more, noted Leah Stokes, the Anton Vonk Associate professor of environmental politics at UC Santa Barbara.
“We’re talking about over 300,000 new jobs,” she said. “We’re really seeing a manufacturing renaissance in the United States because of climate action.”
Moving to renewable energy could hurt employment in the fossil fuel sector. But Stokes said the bill offers incentives for firms to bring new jobs to those communities: “You basically get extra money if you build a wind project or a solar project in a place that used to employ a lot of fossil fuel workers.”
And with increasingly damaging storms, Stokes said that the benefits of climate action outweigh the costs.
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