What Americans Really Think About Energy and Climate

Results of the 2025 AEI Survey Clarifying the Public Debate Around Energy and Climate

The paenl on the right shows how Americans react when asked if they’d pay a fee of various amounts to combat climate change. The “iron law” is just that.

Right before the 2024 election, my AEI colleague Ruy Teixeira and I engaged YouGov to conduct a survey of how Americans view various topics of energy and climate. Today at AEI, the full survey and our summary report is published, including the survey’s toplines and crosstabs (all are directly linked from the bottom of this post).

Here are the key points that Ruy and I highlight:

• The relationship between voter opinion, scientific assessment, and media narrative is poorly understood, thereby reinforcing the current extremely partisan and tribal public discussions about energy and climate.

• The public’s views and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s scientific analysis differ in important respects from the narrative that has come to dominate the mainstream media and public discourse on climate and energy.

• The public broadly supports an “all-of-the-above” approach to energy policy and does not generally support a rapid elimination of fossil fuels. Instead, they support increased domestic production of fossil fuels.

• The public is most interested in the cost and reliability of the energy they use and the convenience and comfort of their energy-using products. They are unwilling to sacrifice much at all financially to address climate change or significantly change their consumer behavior.

These points barely scratch the surface of the fascinating results of the survey (which I discussed here at THB last week). The survey results provide a detailed view of a very wide range of American’s views on climate and energy across a wide range of demographic and political dimensions.

For me, the biggest surprise was learning that most Americans, regardless of political orientation, are in fact ruthlessly pragmatic and sensible about climate and energy. The positions most commonly reflected in media discourse — whether from progressive climate advocates or MAGA opponents to energy diversity — sit far from middle America.

I should not have been surprised. Americans are overwhelmingly far more pragmatic than views found in the media or even those of most elected officials — both of which in 2025 tend to emphasize partisan politics over policy practicalities.

Another surprise was that despite the steady diet of climate porn promoted by activist scientists and journalists, most of the public remains levelheaded about extreme weather. As a theory of political change, the proposition that scaring people about weather extremes will lead to increased support for changes in energy policy has comprehensively failed. Climate advocates might consider returning to the drawing board and consensus science.

Have a look at the survey for yourself and let us know what you find to be important. Your analyses, comments, and reactions are invited!

Here is where you can find the 2025 AEI survey:

The Science vs. the Narrative vs. the Voters: Clarifying the Public Debate Around Energy and Climate

• Full Report (HTML) (PDF)

• Toplines (PDF)

• Crosstabs (PDF)

Thanks to AEI for supporting the survey and special thank to Ruy, who is a fantastic collaborator.

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