Moderate and conservative Republicans overwhelmingly support increasing the use of clean energy and say humans are affecting climate change, but are turned off by the politicization of the issue, according to a poll released Monday.
A poll of 1,200 registered voters, which was purposely oversampled to reach 500 Republicans, found 72 percent of Republican voters want to speed up the development and use of clean energy. In addition, 56 percent of Republicans say the climate is changing and mankind is contributing some amount to that change.
Glen Bolger, of Public Opinion Strategies, said Republican voters want more clean energy but prickle at being warned about the effects of climate change, which they see as politicking. Most climate scientists blame greenhouse gas emissions, mainly through burning fossil fuels, for driving manmade climate change.
“If the discussion is about climate change, that evokes one reaction from Republicans, but if it’s about clean energy, then they view that as essential for America’s future,” he said.
“We’re sort of talking like two ships passing in the night and never seeing each other when we talk about climate change and clean energy.”
ClearPath Foundation, a conservative group that promotes action on clean energy policy, commissioned the poll. In addition to Public Opinion Strategies, Echelon Insights and North Star Opinion Research, all GOP pollsters, contributed to the survey.
Kristen Anderson, of Echelon, said the poll showed Republican voters, including those who identified as conservative Republicans, support the development of clean energy technologies to help improve air quality, reduce pollution, increase economic development, increase jobs and achieve energy independence.
Conservative voters can even be talked into supporting more controls on carbon emissions and increased clean energy subsidies, if provided the right framework.
When asked if they would support a candidate who wanted to strengthen Environmental Protection Agency controls on carbon emissions and increase government subsidies, just 11 percent of Republicans and 10 percent of conservative Republicans said yes.
But when asked if they would support a candidate that said the use of clean energy should be expanded to reduce dependence on foreign oil, reduce air pollution and improve public health, regardless of whether the climate is changing, 83 percent of Republicans and 82 percent of conservative Republicans said yes.
“The best argument that folks on the center-right can make … says ‘Look, I want to depoliticize this climate issue. I want to treat it as we’re managing risk and we’re pursuing it on its own merits,'” Anderson said.
She added that many conservative principles, such as innovation, private enterprise, limited government and national security, line up with clean energy development.
That’s being reflected in the answers some presidential candidates gave to questions about climate change in the last GOP presidential debate.
Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie both spoke about climate change. Rubio has previously doubted man’s impact on climate change, but shied away from saying that during the debate.
Instead, both Rubio and Christie focused on economic challenges they believe would come from enacting the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan, and said they would rather see a solution come from outside government.
That is a step in the right direction, Anderson said.
“When these questions were posed in the presidential debate, the candidates who weighed in on the issue were very quick to not get into debates about the science,” she said, “… and I think that’s good progress.”
“I don’t think there’s a great deal of political risk for Republicans to talk about clean energy. In fact, I think there’s a lot of upside.”
The poll was conducted Aug. 24-Aug. 27 with a margin of error of 2.8 percent. Respondents were contacted by both cell and landline phones.
