Support for wind power and solar energy among Republicans has dropped significantly since 2020, as older Republicans in particular soured on renewable energy sources, according to a new survey from the Pew Research Center.
Still, a clear majority of Americans, 63 percent, want the country to stop adding carbon dioxide from the burning of oil, gas and coal to the atmosphere by 2050, the study found. That’s the goal that scientists say all major economies must reach to avoid the most deadly effects from climate change. To that end, 78 percent want more solar energy while 72 percent want more wind power, the survey found.
But that marks a softening in public support for renewable energy, driven by Republicans and Republican-leaning independents, whose approval of clean energy started to fall sharply after President Biden took office in 2021, according to Pew.
In the new survey, 64 percent of Republicans said they favor more solar farms, down from 84 percent the year Mr. Biden was elected. Similarly, 56 percent of Republicans said they support more wind turbine farms, down from 75 percent in 2020. Over the same period, support among Democrats for wind and solar remained high and steady.
“This is a sizable and significant change,” said Alec Tyson, associate director of research at Pew Research Center. “It’s a new level of polarization on energy issues that we had not previously seen.”
The public’s appetite for electric vehicles has also fallen, with just 29 percent of Americans saying they would consider an E.V. for their next purchase, down from 38 percent in 2023.
The future of clean energy and electric vehicles is at stake in this year’s fight for the White House between former President Donald J. Trump, who has dismissed global warming as a “hoax” and wants the country to continue to produce record amounts of oil and gas, and President Biden, who wants the country to pivot away from the fossil fuels that are driving climate change.
In 2022, President Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act, or the I.R.A., the nation’s most ambitious climate law, which invests at least $370 billion in the manufacturing of electric vehicles, batteries, solar panels and other renewable power. It also provides rebates to consumers who buy E.V.s, heat pumps and other clean energy technology. Mr. Biden has also used environmental regulations to limit the pollution from tailpipes and smokestacks.
All of that became fodder for Republicans, led by Mr. Trump and the fossil fuel industry, who have spent the past four years attacking renewables while promoting oil and gas. The American Petroleum Institute, a trade group, is running an eight figure advertising campaign that portrays fossil fuels as vital to the country’s prosperity. A group of Republican attorneys general has been challenging the Biden administration’s environmental regulations in a series of lawsuits.
“It’s on Republican airways right now because the I.R.A. is one of Biden’s key successes,” said Megan Mullin, director of the Luskin Center for Innovation at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Mr. Trump regularly rails against electric vehicles and clean energy. He has falsely claimed that electric vehicles are all made in China and can run just 15 minutes before they need to be recharged. He has falsely said wind turbines drop real estate values by 75 percent, cause cancer and, when located offshore, kill whales. Solar energy, he has incorrectly said, “would mean that America’s seniors have no air conditioning during the summer, no heat during the winter, and no electricity during peak hours.”
The Pew study found that when it comes to energy policy, the gap between Democrats and Republicans has only widened since 2020.
In May 2020, 91 percent of Democrats said the national priority should be developing renewable energy, compared with 65 percent of Republicans.
Four years later, that gap has ballooned, due almost entirely to changing views among Republicans. Just 38 percent of Republicans now say renewable energy should be prioritized.
At the same time, the share of Republicans who believe that priority should be given to developing oil, coal and natural gas has grown from 35 percent to 61 percent, the survey found.
“Solar and wind are code for Democrat,” said Mike Murphy, a Republican political consultant and founder of EVRepublicans.org, which tries to build support for electric vehicles among Republicans. “We’ve started to apply political identities to things that shouldn’t have political identities.”
There is, however, a generational split among Republicans when it comes to renewable energy, the study found. In an almost reverse image, two-thirds of Republicans ages 18 to 29 said the nation should prioritize the expansion of renewable energy while 76 percent of Republicans ages 65 and older said the priority should be more oil, coal and natural gas.
Almost all Democrats, regardless of age, prioritized developing renewable energy sources like wind and solar. The survey found that 64 percent of Democrats support a Biden administration regulation aimed at expanding sales of electric vehicles, while 83 percent of Republicans oppose it.
Mr. Murphy said he believes attitudes toward renewable energy will change once factories made possible by the Inflation Reduction Act are built, jobs are created and electric vehicles become more attractive to purchase. But, he said, de-emphasizing the environmental benefits of clean energy is a must in order to win over Republican consumers.
“The environmental stuff is triggering to them,” Mr. Murphy said.
Scientists say a global transition to wind, solar and other forms of nonpolluting energy is vital to reduce the greenhouse gases produced from burning fossil fuels that are dangerously heating the planet.
The Pew survey also offers a rare window into public opinions about renewable energy in rural America, finding “less positive views of wind and solar” there than among people who live in urban or suburban areas. Only about a quarter of rural residents said they believe a local solar development would help their local economy, and just 35 percent thought it would lower the price of electricity.
About 40 percent of urban residents thought such a project would be economically beneficial, and 51 percent thought it would bring down electricity prices.
Rural residents also are more likely than urban dwellers to believe a clean energy project like a solar farm would make the local landscape “ugly.”
