You’re out of free articles.
Log in
To continue reading, log in to your account.
Create a Free Account
To unlock more free articles, please create a free account.
Sign In or Create an Account.
By continuing, you agree to the Terms of Service and acknowledge our Privacy Policy
Welcome to Heatmap
Thank you for registering with Heatmap. Climate change is one of the greatest challenges of our lives, a force reshaping our economy, our politics, and our culture. We hope to be your trusted, friendly, and insightful guide to that transformation. Please enjoy your free articles. You can check your profile here .
subscribe to get Unlimited access
Offer for a Heatmap News Unlimited Access subscription; please note that your subscription will renew automatically unless you cancel prior to renewal. Cancellation takes effect at the end of your current billing period. We will let you know in advance of any price changes. Taxes may apply. Offer terms are subject to change.
Subscribe to get unlimited Access
Hey, you are out of free articles but you are only a few clicks away from full access. Subscribe below and take advantage of our introductory offer.
subscribe to get Unlimited access
Offer for a Heatmap News Unlimited Access subscription; please note that your subscription will renew automatically unless you cancel prior to renewal. Cancellation takes effect at the end of your current billing period. We will let you know in advance of any price changes. Taxes may apply. Offer terms are subject to change.
Create Your Account
Please Enter Your Password
Forgot your password?
Please enter the email address you use for your account so we can send you a link to reset your password:
A number of terms used by climate activists, politicians, and communicators are unfamiliar to the majority of Americans.
The biggest debates during the annual United Nations climate conference, underway this week in Dubai, always center around language.
The Paris Agreement, the 2015 treaty significant for uniting almost every country in the world in supporting a common strategy to address climate change, was almost scuttled by an argument over whether nations “should” cut emissions or “shall” do it. This year, delegates are at odds over whether the world should “phase down” or “phase out” fossil fuels, and whether to allow for “abated” fossil fuels, a euphemism for the use of carbon capture technologies that prevent emissions from entering the atmosphere.
To explain the significance of these debates, the media often points to the scientific consensus that the world must reach “net zero” to achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement. But does anyone know what we’re talking about?
Heatmap’s second Climate Poll, conducted in mid-November by Benenson Strategy Group, found that the “Paris Agreement,” “Net Zero,” and a number of other terms used by activists, politicians, and climate communicators, are still unfamiliar to the majority of Americans.
One thousand adults, ages 18 and up, were asked, “In the context of climate change, sustainability and environmental responsibility, how familiar are you with the following terms?”
The results are not exactly surprising. It makes sense that people would be far more familiar with mature technologies like solar, wind, and nuclear, than with terms like “green hydrogen” and “direct air capture,” which are much newer to the conversation and barely exist at scale in the real world yet.
When I ran the findings by Jonathon Schuldt, an associate professor at Cornell University who studies public opinion on health and environmental issues, he agreed that they reflect “the effect of time and exposure” to these terms among the public. “Solar, wind, and nuclear energy have been part of the mainstream discourse for many decades,” he said, “even before terms like global warming and climate change.” To prove it, Schuldt showed me the results of running the terms through the Google Books Ngram Viewer, which identifies their prevalence in books over time:
Google Books Ngram Viewer
But now, the reality on the ground in the U.S. is changing rapidly. The Biden administration is pouring more than $10 billion dollars into deploying green hydrogen plants and direct air capture machines at various sites around the country as a result of two major climate packages passed in 2021 and 2022, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act. Even as these two pieces of legislation have reshaped the energy and climate discussion in the U.S. in the last two years, public familiarity with green hydrogen and direct air capture appears to have remained static. Our findings line up very closely with a similar poll conducted by Data for Progress in May 2021. While both solutions hold a lot of promise to reduce climate change, they come with many more risks and trade-offs than solar or wind.
In general, we found that more Democrats were familiar with the terms on the list than Republicans. But slightly more Republicans expressed familiarity with “ESG” (40% vs 35%) “nuclear energy,” (71% vs 70%) “wind energy,” (77% vs 75%), “the IPCC 1.5C report” (22% vs 21%) and “Paris agreement” (38% vs 35%).
More men also expressed knowledge of the terms than women in every category.
There was also a significant gap between Americans below and above the age of 50, with younger generations far more likely to know terms like “environmental justice,” “carbon removal,” and “the IPCC 1.5C report.”
We also found a correlation between people who said that they had been personally affected by climate change and knowledge of key climate concepts. About three times as many people who had been affected by climate change knew what “green hydrogen” or a “direct air capture plant” was, compared with those who said they had not been affected by climate change.
“A key question is whether familiarity corresponds to support,” Schuldt told me. “Especially given COP28’s emphasis on the need to shift to renewable energy. On the other hand, that most respondents were unfamiliar with central terms like environmental justice and net zero suggests that the climate movement has more work to do when it comes to engaging the general public in these conversations.”
Well, Heatmap asked about support, too, for at least a few of these. And while solar and wind do have significant support, some of the results are a bit contradictory to the familiarity findings, because far more people said they would support the Paris Agreement and environmental justice than admitted they knew what these phrases meant. (The added context probably helped too.)
We went a lot deeper on some of these questions, especially around support for renewable energy, and will have more to share with you in the coming weeks.
The Heatmap Climate Poll of 1,000 American adults was conducted by Benenson Strategy Group via online panels from Nov. 6 to 13, 2023. The survey included interviews with Americans in all 50 states and Washington, D.C. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.
Log in
To continue reading, log in to your account.
Create a Free Account
To unlock more free articles, please create a free account.
Did a battery plant disaster in California spark a PR crisis on the East Coast?
Battery fire fears are fomenting a storage backlash in New York City – and it risks turning into fresh PR hell for the industry.
Aggrieved neighbors, anti-BESS activists, and Republican politicians are galvanizing more opposition to battery storage in pockets of the five boroughs where development is actually happening, capturing rapt attention from other residents as well as members of the media. In Staten Island, a petition against a NineDot Energy battery project has received more than 1,300 signatures in a little over two months. Two weeks ago, advocates – backed by representatives of local politicians including Rep. Nicole Mallitokis – swarmed a public meeting on the project, getting a local community board to vote unanimously against the project.
According to Heatmap Pro’s proprietary modeling of local opinion around battery storage, there are likely twice as many strong opponents than strong supporters in the area:
Heatmap Pro
Yesterday, leaders in the Queens community of Hempstead enacted a year-long ban on BESS for at least a year after GOP Rep. Anthony D’Esposito, other local politicians, and a slew of aggrieved residents testified in favor of a moratorium. The day before, officials in the Long Island town of Southampton said at a public meeting they were ready to extend their battery storage ban until they enshrined a more restrictive development code – even as many energy companies testified against doing so, including NineDot and solar plus storage developer Key Capture Energy. Yonkers also recently extended its own battery moratorium.
This flurry of activity follows the Moss Landing battery plant fire in California, a rather exceptional event caused by tech that was extremely old and a battery chemistry that is no longer popular in the sector. But opponents of battery storage don’t care – they’re telling their friends to stop the community from becoming the next Moss Landing. The longer this goes on without a fulsome, strident response from the industry, the more communities may rally against them. Making matters even worse, as I explained in The Fight earlier this year, we’re seeing battery fire concerns impact solar projects too.
“This is a huge problem for solar. If [fires] start regularly happening, communities are going to say hey, you can’t put that there,” Derek Chase, CEO of battery fire smoke detection tech company OnSight Technologies, told me at Intersolar this week. “It’s going to be really detrimental.”
I’ve long worried New York City in particular may be a powder keg for the battery storage sector given its omnipresence as a popular media environment. If it happens in New York, the rest of the world learns about it.
I feel like the power of the New York media environment is not lost on Staten Island borough president Vito Fossella, a de facto leader of the anti-BESS movement in the boroughs. Last fall I interviewed Fossella, whose rhetorical strategy often leans on painting Staten Island as an overburdened community. (At least 13 battery storage projects have been in the works in Staten Island according to recent reporting. Fossella claims that is far more than any amount proposed elsewhere in the city.) He often points to battery blazes that happen elsewhere in the country, as well as fears about lithium-ion scooters that have caught fire. His goal is to enact very large setback distance requirements for battery storage, at a minimum.
“You can still put them throughout the city but you can’t put them next to people’s homes – what happens if one of these goes on fire next to a gas station,” he told me at the time, chalking the wider city government’s reluctance to capitulate on batteries to a “political problem.”
Well, I’m going to hold my breath for the real political problem in waiting – the inevitable backlash that happens when Mallitokis, D’Esposito, and others take this fight to Congress and the national stage. I bet that’s probably why American Clean Power just sent me a notice for a press briefing on battery safety next week …
And more of the week’s top conflicts around renewable energy.
1. Queen Anne’s County, Maryland – They really don’t want you to sign a solar lease out in the rural parts of this otherwise very pro-renewables state.
2. Logan County, Ohio – Staff for the Ohio Power Siting Board have recommended it reject Open Road Renewables’ Grange Solar agrivoltaics project.
3. Bandera County, Texas – On a slightly brighter note for solar, it appears that Pine Gate Renewables’ Rio Lago solar project might just be safe from county restrictions.
Here’s what else we’re watching…
In Illinois, Armoracia Solar is struggling to get necessary permits from Madison County.
In Kentucky, the mayor of Lexington is getting into a public spat with East Kentucky Power Cooperative over solar.
In Michigan, Livingston County is now backing the legal challenge to Michigan’s state permitting primacy law.
On the week’s top news around renewable energy policy.
1. IRA funding freeze update – Money is starting to get out the door, finally: the EPA unfroze most of its climate grant funding it had paused after Trump entered office.
2. Scalpel vs. sledgehammer – House Speaker Mike Johnson signaled Republicans in Congress may take a broader approach to repealing the Inflation Reduction Act than previously expected in tax talks.
3. Endangerment in danger – The EPA is reportedly urging the White House to back reversing its 2009 “endangerment” finding on air pollutants and climate change, a linchpin in the agency’s overall CO2 and climate regulatory scheme.