AP-NORC poll: Americans want local leaders to fight warming
WASHINGTON Americans want their local officials to take on the challenge of battling global warming now that President Donald Trump is withdrawing the nation an international climate change agreement.
That’s according to a new poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago. The poll finds 57 per cent of Americans say they favour local governments picking up the slack to try and reduce greenhouse gas emissions on their own, with only 10 per cent opposing it. About 55 per cent of Americans say their own local and state governments should be doing more to address global warming, with only 10 per cent saying they should be doing less.
And more Americans oppose than favour Trump’s effort to pull the U.S. out of the 2015 Paris accord, in which nearly 200 nations agreed to self-imposed cuts or limits on emissions of heat-trapping gas pollution. Forty-two per cent of those surveyed said they oppose getting out of the Paris agreement, while 28 per cent-favoured the withdrawal and 28 per cent had no strong opinion. Among Democrats 64 per cent want to stay in the Paris agreement and 17 per cent don’t. More Republicans favoured withdrawing, 46 per cent, than staying in, 22 per cent.
Martha Oberman, an online businesswoman from Texas who sells collectibles, called Trump’s decision to get out of the Paris agreement “horrible, short-sighted.”
“If we’re not going to get (action) from the top, you have to start at the bottom at the local level and work its way to the top,” Oberman said.
Local governments can get things done, said Antonio Torres, a former chef in central Florida. He’d like to see local governments bring more solar energy use online.
That rings true with Salt Lake City Mayor Jackie Biskupski, who co-chairs two committees of mayors who are fighting climate change. One of her groups has 115 cities committed to the goal of having their cities operating entirely on renewable energy by the year 2035. Salt Lake City is hoping to beat that goal by a few years.
“We’re leading the conversation because we have to now,” Biskupski said. “Here we are with the president coming out against supporting the Paris agreement. Now we really ramped things up with the mayors across the country.”
Overall, 72 per cent of Americans say they believe climate change is happening and 63 per cent think human activity is at least partially responsible. Eighty-two per cent of Democrats and 43 per cent of Republicans say they believe in at least partially humancaused climate change. The poll was conducted before a spate of hurricanes battered Texas, Florida and Puerto Rico.
Eighty per cent of Democrats and 43 per cent of Republicans think it’s a problem the U.S. government should be addressing.