New data shows appetite among Americans for climate action

Elimini, a new US-based company with an ambition to be the world’s leading carbon removals business, has launched at Climate Week NYC 2024. We’re dedicated to permanently removing carbon from the atmosphere while generating renewable, 24/7 power.

You can read the full announcement here.

New poll data: First look

Today, we released a first look at data from an upcoming survey that gauged Americans’ views on climate change, net zero, renewable energy, and carbon removals.

Read on for a sneak peek before the full report is released in October 2024 – watch this space.

Headlines

People are concerned about climate change (74%). Cost of living and employment dominate people’s concerns but climate change ranks among the top 10.

Projected demand for energy from new technologies, like AI, is a concern (64%) and there is strong support for the US energy grid to run fully on clean power in the future (76%).

56% support that the US should lead the way globally on deploying carbon removal technologies and scaling up the market. The support for this is higher among those more familiar with carbon removal technologies (71%).

Climate change and net zero

People are concerned about climate change, but it is not a top priority for them.

Although a majority of respondents (74%) are concerned about climate change it is not their top priority. Issues such as cost-of-living, jobs, and the economy are considered more pressing.

Framing climate technology actions around how they have a positive impact on higher concern issues – e.g., stabilizing prices by becoming less dependent on foreign energy sources – could be an effective method to boost support for climate actions.

Over half of respondents (52%) think that the national government is the most responsible for financing efforts to combat climate change, but only a third (37%) think the national government is currently doing enough (see visual below).

A majority of respondents (56%) think that the increased use of renewable energy will create jobs – directly bearing on a headline concern amongst the public. 

Renewable energy and energy security

People are concerned power demand from modern technology will cause energy blackouts in the future, although they are less concerned by energy blackouts generally. Additionally, there is appetite for greater use of clean energy, but people are less willing to increase their utility bills to fund this.

The majority of respondents (78%) do not think that energy blackouts have increased in recent years.

Despite this, over half of respondents (56%) are concerned by energy black outs in future and 64% are concerned modern technologies will place too much demand on the energy grid in the future (as shown below).

Over three quarters of respondents (76%) would like to see the US energy grid eventually run on 100% clean power.

However, only 50% of respondents said they would be willing to have an increase in their utility bills to fund only using renewable energy. This reflects cost-of-living demands are more of an immediate priority for many before tackling climate change.

Carbon removals

Even though most people do not know much about carbon removal technologies, there is support for the US to lead the way on developing these technologies.

Over half of respondents (56%) have heard about carbon removal technologies but most do not know much about them, with only 16% being familiar with them and 40% have heard about them but don’t know much about them.

Respondents have mixed views in their attitudes towards carbon removal technologies, which may reflect varying levels of knowledge.

Despite respondents not knowing much about carbon removal technologies, over half (57%) think the government should be doing more to support the development of these technologies and that the US should lead the way on this (56%).

This trend is higher among those who are familiar with carbon removal technologies: 72% think the government should be doing more to support the development of these technologies and 71% say the government should lead the way on this.

This suggests people who are more familiar with carbon removal technologies are also more favorable towards them (as shown below).

The details

The survey was administered online and polled 2,732 respondents from the US general public. Fieldwork was completed in September 2024. Data has been weighted to be nationally representative of the US population.

Watch this space – the full report is expected in October 2024.