Clean energy has become an even more divisive topic in the US

While most Americans would like to see more clean energy from solar and wind farms, support for new renewable energy projects has begun to wane, according to a recent Pew Research Center survey. Interest in electric vehicles has also fallen amid the Biden administration’s policies to curb greenhouse gas emissions and Republican opposition.

The survey found that since 2020, the percentage of people who support more solar energy has fallen from 90 percent to 78 percent. Over the past four years, support for wind power among survey participants has fallen by more than 10 percentage points to 72 percent. Only 29 percent of adults said they would consider an electric vehicle as their next car purchase, down from 38 percent last year.

Increasing partisan division on clean energy technology appears to be driving these changes. The biggest decline in support has been among Republicans in recent years, even though there are differences between how older and younger GOP generations view climate change and renewable energy.

The Pew Research Center surveyed 8,638 U.S. adults in May this year. Strives to include participants who are representative of the U.S. population in terms of race, ethnicity, gender, education, political affiliation, and more.

In 2020, 84 percent of Republican poll participants said they would like to see more solar farms, and 75 percent said they favored more wind farms in the US. This year, support for solar and wind farms has dropped to 64 and 56 percent, respectively. More than 80 percent of Republicans surveyed, compared to 35 percent of Democrats, oppose new Environmental Protection Agency standards on tailpipe greenhouse gas emissions, which are expected to account for more than half of car sales by 2032.

These changes in public opinion align with the Biden administration’s efforts to encourage new renewable energy projects since his election in 2020. President Biden signed the nation’s largest investment in climate and clean energy, the $369 billion Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), into law in 2022. Meanwhile, Republican lawmakers have tried to slow electric vehicle adoption by trying to roll back tax credits for electric vehicles and blocking regulations on exhaust pollution.

While many Republican lawmakers have sharply criticized the IRA’s investments in electric vehicles and renewable energy sources, much of the funding the IRA has created for clean technology production actually goes to their districts. Of the $206 billion in investments so far, $161 billion is earmarked for projects in Republican districts, according to a recent Bloomberg analysis. Most of this money supports the production of electric vehicles and batteries. A separate analysis by CNN similarly found that nearly 78 percent of IRA investments go to Republican congressional districts.

We’ll have to wait and see if this cash injection changes Republicans’ views on renewable energy. However, the tide may turn again for younger Republicans, who are much more optimistic about solar and wind energy than their older counterparts. Only 22 percent of Republicans 65 and older in the survey said increasing renewable energy production should be a priority. In contrast, 67 percent of Republicans ages 18 to 29 said renewable energy should be a priority over coal, oil and gas production. Overall, young adults are more likely to think climate change will cause more harm to the U.S. over their lifetimes, according to another Pew study released in October.