Terry Jones writes for Issues and Insights about interesting new poll results related to climate change.
Voters have little confidence that anything significant will emerge from this month’s global climate talks that begin in Brazil this week, but they are also split on what the best course forward would be, the latest I&I/TIPP Poll shows.
The latest I&I/TIPP Poll, taken from Oct. 28 to Oct. 31, asked 1,418 adults the following question: “How confident are you that the upcoming United Nations climate talks (COP30) in Brazil, with a goal of raising $1.3 trillion in climate finance, will succeed in curbing global warming?”
Overall, just 34% said they were either “very confident” (11%) or “somewhat confident” (23%), while 49% said they were “not very confident” (27%) and 22% said they were “not at all confident.” Another 18% said they weren’t sure.
Looking across responses by demographic groups, two stand out: Responses by age, and responses by political affiliation.
Start with age. Among those 18 to 24 years old, 46% were “confident,” while 38% were “not confident. For 25 to 44 years, the comparable numbers were nearly identical: 47% confident, 37% not confident. But for those 45 to 64, the confident share fell to 26% while the not confident jumped to 52%. For 65 and above, the confident number dips further to 20%, while the not confident surges to 65%.
Clearly, there’s a major generation gap on the climate change issue.
Political affiliation is another difference, but in a surprising way.
Democrats (41% confident, 43% not confident) aren’t really too far from Republicans (35% confident, 51% not confident) when it comes to confidence, but as the numbers show GOP members are less confident overall.
It’s not the Republicans who take the prize for least confident overall, but rather the independents who come in at 26% confident, to 54% not confident. That’s a 28 percentage-point confidence gap, compared to a 16 percentage-point deficit for the GOP and just 2 percentage points for the Dems.
