The first round of results from the RFF/Stanford/USA Today poll was released today and it shows that a majority of the US favors doing something to address the threat of climate change, although there is substantially less agreement about what exactly to do. There's a lot to dig into that's relevant to climate policy options we analyze here at RFF. For example, the poll finds that 54 percent of respondents supports the US government requiring power plants to limit their emissions of greenhouse gas pollutants. That number is up from recent years, but it's down slightly from its high in 2007.
Full wording of the question and historical responses are below:
Q36. [RANDOMLY ASSIGN RESPONDENTS TO BE ASKED EITHER VERSION A OR VERSION B OF THE INTRODUCTION TO THE NEXT QUESTION.]
VERSION A: For the next items, please tell me for each one whether it's something the government should require by law, encourage with tax breaks but not require, or stay out of entirely. Each of these changes would increase the amount of money that you pay for things you buy. …First…Next…
VERSION B: For the next items, please tell me for each one whether it's something the government should require by law to try to reduce future global warming, should encourage with tax breaks but not require, or stay out of entirely. Each of these changes would increase the amount of money that you pay for things you buy. …First…Next…
[AFTER READING EACH ITEM, INTERVIEWER PAUSE, THEN ASK] “should the government require this by law (pause), encourage it with tax breaks, or stay out of it entirely?”
Q36_5: Lowering the amount of greenhouse gases that power plants are allowed to release into the air?
| Q36_5 |
3/14/2006 |
4/10/2007 |
11/29/2009 |
6/7/2010 |
11/14/2010 |
3/11/2012 |
6/21/2012 |
12/05/2013 |
| Require by law |
61 |
62 |
42 |
42 |
44 |
42 |
41 |
54 |
| Encourage by tax breaks |
26 |
26 |
34 |
38 |
33 |
28 |
37 |
25 |
| Stay out of way entirely |
11 |
10 |
22 |
19 |
20 |
27 |
21 |
21 |
| Don’t know/Refused |
2 |
3 |
1 |
1 |
2 |
3 |
1 |
1 |
| Total |
100 |
100 |
100 |
100 |
100 |
100 |
100 |
100 |
| N |
1002 |
1002 |
1005 |
1000 |
1001 |
1428 |
804 |
801 |
Full particulars of the poll:
Resources for the Future/Stanford University/USA Today poll, Conducted by Abt SRBI, Interview dates: Nov, 20 – Dec 5, 2013, 801 adults nationwide, margin of error: +/- 4.2 percentage points at the 95% confidence level
Expect more results in the future on both climate and energy topics - the precise wordings of the questions and responses discussed in today's USA Today story are available here. We've been lucky to work closely with RFF University Fellow Jon Krosnick and Bo Macinnis, both of Stanford, on the this poll.
