Young GOP voters want action against warming — poll
The majority of young Republicans want action on global warming, according to a new survey from the conservative group the Alliance for Market Solutions.
“This underscores the need for policymakers to consider forward-looking solutions to address carbon pollution in [a] way that makes a positive economic impact,” AMS Executive Director Alex Flint said in a statement.
Flint, a former member of President Trump’s transition team who previously worked as senior vice president of governmental affairs at the Nuclear Energy Institute, said cutting “outdated” energy regulations and replacing them with a revenue-neutral carbon tax would help the economy grow.
And it would “create a market for clean-energy technologies, allowing markets, instead of government, to lead on reducing carbon pollution,” he said.
Pollsters with the firm Echelon Insights interviewed 800 registered voters — including 400 young Republicans — ages 18 to 35 in January and conducted focus groups of young, center-right adults in Charlotte, N.C.
Echelon found that nearly 9 out of 10 millennials believe climate change is happening, and the majority of those say it is driven by human activity. About 80 percent of voters polled said they are concerned about air pollution, and 77 percent said the same for global warming.
Of the Republicans polled, more than 60 percent said they are concerned about air pollution, and just over 50 percent about climate change. And 3 out of 4 millennials said it is important to stop or slow global warming.
“This report shows that young voters clearly care about climate change and its impacts now and in the future,” Kristen Soltis Anderson, a pollster at Echelon Insights, said in a statement.
AMS was launched by Flint and fellow NEI alumnus Chris Carter last year with the aim to urge Republicans to adopt a revenue-neutral carbon tax coupled with repeal of greenhouse gas regulations. The group is part of a growing number of conservatives calling for pricing carbon to address climate change (E&E Daily, Nov. 1, 2017).