According to a new poll by the Associated Press and the NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, and the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago, a lot of Americans regard the deteriorating climate as a problem of high importance.
In all, 59% of Americans said the Earth's warming was very or extremely important to them as an issue, up from 49% in 2018. Roughly that many also believe the pace of warming is increasing.
President Joe Biden is hoping to help negotiate big cuts in climate-wrecking pollution globally at the upcoming UN climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland.
At home, Biden has struggled to pass meaningful legislation to limit climate change. That's despite the AP poll's finding that 55% of Americans want Congress to pass a bill to ensure that most of the nation's electricity comes from clean energy like wind or solar as opposed to climate-damaging coal and natural gas. Only 16% of Americans oppose such a measure for electricity from cleaner energy.
Biden was recently forced to drop provisions requiring power companies to switch to clean energy from an enormous social services package currently being considered by Congress. That's because Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin, who represents the coal state of West Virginia, objected to the provisions.
