Research
Yale Program on Climate Change Communication
The Yale Program on Climate Change Communication has created a new version of its Yale Republican and Democratic Climate Opinion Maps, which give side-by-side comparisons of public opinions on a wide variety of climate-change opinions and solutions. The maps provide these data at the national, state, congressional district level. The data are based on polling through 2018, but the Program has now updated the maps to allow easier comparisons between the views of members of the two political parties. The Program’s visualization work also includes interactive maps issued last year to show climate change beliefs, risk perceptions and policy support at the state, congressional district, metro and county levels across the nation.
Articles
The Case for “Climate Pragmatism”
In the July/August 2020 issue of Foreign Affairs, Hal Harvey, the CEO of Energy Innovation, makes the case for “climate pragmatism”— a plan to divert cash flows away from fossil fuels in the most carbon-intensive sectors of the economy: transportation, buildings, energy production and manufacturing. Harvey contends that policies like renewable energy portfolio standards, progressive building codes, vehicle fuel efficiency standards, carbon pricing and “buy clean” policies for governments are generally easier than raising taxes or engaging in federal deficit spending. This strategy “focuses on the most consequential decisions and is backed by a deep understanding of who makes the key choices” that result in carbon emissions, Harvey writes. (Subscription required.)
Getting to a Carbon-Free Economy
Author: Jeffrey Sachs. Publication: The American Prospect. Topic: Getting to a Carbon-Free Economy. “To beat Big Oil, the Green New Deal advocates need a specific plan: one that demonstrates how decarbonization will work, and how it will benefit every part of the country…The good news is that the specifics of a Green New Deal to decarbonize the energy system are finally coming into focus… Decarbonization to save the planet is actually the greatest bargain of our time.”