Clean energy has become an even more divided issue in the US

While most Americans would like to see more clean energy coming from solar and wind farms, support for new renewable energy projects has begun to wane, according to a recent Pew Research Center study. survey. It also found a drop in interest in electric vehicles following the Biden administration’s policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and the Republican backlash.

The percentage of people advocating for more solar energy has fallen from 90 to 78 percent since 2020, the survey found. Support for wind energy among survey participants also fell more than 10 percentage points, to 72 percent, over the past four years. And just 29% of adults said they would consider an EV as their next car purchase, compared to 38% last year.

A widening partisan divide over clean energy technologies appears to be driving these changes. The biggest drop in support has occurred among Republicans in recent years, although there are differences between how older and younger generations in the GOP view climate change and renewable energy.

The Pew Research Center surveyed 8,638 U.S. adults in May of this year. Attempts to include participants who are representative of the U.S. population with regards to race, ethnicity, gender, education, political affiliation, and more.

In 2020, 84% of Republican survey participants said they would like to see more solar farms and 75% said they would prefer more wind farms in the US. That support dropped to 64 and 56 percent, respectively, for solar and wind farms this year. More than 80 percent of Republicans surveyed, compared with 35 percent of Democrats, oppose the Environmental Protection Agency’s new standards for greenhouse gas emissions from tailpipes, which are expected to account for more than half of electric car sales by 2032.

These shifts in opinion coincide with the Biden administration’s push to encourage new renewable energy projects since being elected in 2020. President Biden signed into law the nation’s largest investment in climate action and clean energy in 2022, the Inflation Reduction Act ( IRA) of US$369 billion. . Meanwhile, Republican lawmakers have tried to slow EV adoption, trying to roll back tax credits for EVs and blocking the tailpipe pollution rule.

Although many Republican lawmakers have criticized the IRA’s investments in electric vehicles and renewable energy, much of the funding created for clean technology manufacturing is actually flowing to their districts. Of the US$206 billion in investments so far, US$161 billion is planned for projects in Republican districts, according to a recent Bloomberg analysis. Most of this money supports the manufacturing of electric vehicles and batteries. A separation CNN analysis similarly, they found that nearly 78% of IRA investments go to Republican congressional districts.

We’ll have to wait and see if this infusion of money changes Republican minds on renewable energy. But the tide could also turn again with younger Republicans, who are much more optimistic about solar and wind energy than their older counterparts. Just 22 percent of Republicans 65 and older surveyed said expanding renewable energy production should be a priority. In contrast, 67 percent of Republicans ages 18 to 29 said renewable energy should be the priority over coal, oil and gas production. In general, young adults are more likely to think climate change will cause more harm in the U.S. during their lifetime, according to another Pew study. survey published in October.