Department of Psychology, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California, United States of America.
Sol Price School of Public Policy and Department of Psychology, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California, United States of America.
PLoS One. 2024 May 15;19(5):e0302434. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0302434. eCollection 2024.
Political polarization of Americans' support for climate policies often impedes the adoption of new, urgently needed climate solutions. However, recent polls suggest that younger conservatives favor adopting pro-climate policies to a greater degree than older conservatives, resulting in less political polarization among younger Americans relative to older Americans. To better understand these patterns, we analyzed Americans' support for various climate policies from 1982-2020, across 16 waves of historical, nationally representative survey data from the American National Election Studies (total N = 29,467). Regression models consistently show that, since 2012, younger Americans have been less politically polarized than older Americans on support for climate policies. Before 2012 and on non-climate policy topics, we did not find consistent statistical evidence for political polarization varying with age. These findings can inform policy debates about climate change and offer hope to environmentalists and policymakers who seek to build broad consensus for climate action at the policy level.
美国人对气候政策的支持存在明显的政治分歧,这往往阻碍了新的、急需的气候解决方案的采用。然而,最近的民意调查显示,年轻的保守派比年长的保守派更倾向于采取支持气候的政策,这导致年轻的美国人与年长的美国人相比,政治分歧程度更小。为了更好地理解这些模式,我们分析了 1982 年至 2020 年期间美国人对各种气候政策的支持情况,数据来自美国国家选举研究(American National Election Studies)的 16 波历史、全国代表性调查数据(总 N=29467)。回归模型一致表明,自 2012 年以来,年轻的美国人在支持气候政策方面的政治分歧比年长的美国人要小。在 2012 年之前和非气候政策议题上,我们没有发现政治分歧随年龄变化的一致统计证据。这些发现可以为气候变化的政策辩论提供信息,并为寻求在政策层面上为气候行动建立广泛共识的环保主义者和政策制定者带来希望。