Climate change is an extremely politically polarized topic in the United States, with Democrats generally concerned about human-caused climate change and Republicans more skeptical. But these familiar broad strokes hide both differences within parties and bipartisan agreement—as well as a broad, messy middle, according to a new analysis based on two decades of polling data.
“Americans are deeply divided on climate change, but the real story is much deeper than a simple Democrat-Republican split,” says Mayank Kejriwal of the Information Science Institute at the University of Southern California.
Past studies have provided hints that other socio-demographic factors such as income, age, and education may also shape climate attitudes. But the new study employs a methodology that enabled researchers to assess a comprehensive set of factors at the same time to see where the fault lines truly lie.
Kejriwal and USC engineering graduate student Yidan Sun analyzed responses to an annual Gallup Poll survey that queried U.S. adults on various environmental topics from 2000 to 2020. They assessed climate attitudes and looked at how support for 14 different climate-related policy proposals varies both within and across parties.
As expected, party identification is the strongest factor influencing climate beliefs, the researchers found. The partisan divide on climate has long existed, but it deepened after Donald Trump was first elected to the presidency in 2016. In the 2017 poll, climate concern jumped among Democrats and Independents like a collective eyebrow raise, while remaining at a flat, relatively low level among Republicans.
But people aren’t just blue or red, they’re individuals. And their opinions are shaped by more than just their political party, the researchers discovered when they dug into the influence of age, income, ethnicity, and education.
“Climate opinion is polarized, but it is not uniform, and understanding those internal differences matters if we want to understand where public support for climate policy may grow,” says Kejriwal.
The biggest divide within the Republican party is by age. Republicans under age 35 are more likely than older Republicans to support renewable energy and oppose fossil fuel development.
Yet the devil is still in the details: Young Republicans might support renewable energy development, but they tend to oppose a carbon tax right along with their elder partisans. Meanwhile, young Democrats show high support for both policies.
In general, Republicans tend to be more open to technology- and market-oriented climate policies, suggesting that future climate communication efforts could frame policies in these terms rather than emphasizing regulations that are unpopular among conservatives.
Among Democrats, education is the most important factor shaping climate attitudes, with higher levels of education linked to greater support for various climate policies. Education moves Republican beliefs to a much lesser degree.
“One striking result was how consistently policy support depended on the design of the policy, not just on general concern about climate change,” says Kejriwal.
For example, policies to limit household energy use are unpopular across the political spectrum, in line with people’s general preference for climate carrots over sticks. And some policies like government investment in solar energy and development of alternative fuels enjoy broad support regardless of political party.
Another pattern seen across the political spectrum is inconsistency: a substantial proportion of Democrats (26.8%), Independents (42.6%), and Republicans (36.3%) alike fall into what the researchers call the “mixed middle”—people with complicated, sometimes contradictory views on climate, rather than pure skepticism or concern. Messages that link climate policies to economic or public health benefits could help sway this group, the researchers suggest.
Source: Sun Y. and M. Kejriwal. “Modeling complex associations between socio-demographic factors and climate policies using Conditional Inference Trees.” Humanities and Social Sciences Communications 2026.
Image: © Anthropocene Magazine (based on Adobe Stock/Julia)
