Poll: Americans want more climate change action

Most Americans think the federal government is not doing enough to fight climate change, according to a poll, while respondents to the survey also show limited knowledge about a new law that commits the US to its largest-ever investment to fight global warming.

The poll, released by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research on Tuesday, found that 62 percent, or about 6 in 10 adults in the US say the federal government is doing too little to reduce climate change.

Only 19 percent of Americans say the federal government is doing something to fight climate change, mostly driven by 43 percent of Republicans, who agreed with that statement.

In August, President Joe Biden signed legislation to fight climate change as part of the Inflation Reduction Act, which includes around $375 billion to accelerate the expansion of clean energy such as wind and solar power, speeding the transition from fuels such as oil, coal and natural gas.

Biden and Democratic lawmakers have praised the new law as a milestone. The administration has spent millions touting the bill in weeks leading up to the midterm elections.

But 61 percent of American adults said they have heard nothing or only knew a little about the law, according to the AP-NORC poll. And about 49 percent of Americans say the legislation won't make much of a difference on climate change. Just 33 percent say the legislation will help with climate change, while 14 percent thought it would do more to hurt the efforts.

Leah Stokes, an environmental policy professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, told The Associated Press that she wasn't surprised that the climate law is not very known, despite that it was debated in Congress, approved and signed by Biden.

The law was passed during the summer when people pay less attention to news, "and it takes time to explain it", especially because many of the law's provisions haven't kicked in, Stokes said.

The poll, conducted Sept 9 to Sept 12 among 1,054 adults, also found that 62 percent of the respondents say companies' refusal to reduce energy is a major obstacle to addressing climate change. About half of Americans think government action that targets companies with restrictions is important.

In 2009, at the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, developed countries promised to mobilize at least $100 billion annually to help poorer nations shift to clean energy and gird themselves against climate change.

The promise, which has been reiterated in the 2015 Paris Agreement, hasn't been honored.

As one of the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases, the US will largely determine how many people in remote countries will suffer from heat and endure severe storms, floods, droughts, and other consequences of climate changes, according to the analysis conducted by the Climate Impact Lab.

Due to their high consumption of fossil fuels, only 10 US states could save 3.7 million lives worldwide by cutting their emissions to zero, according to the analysis.

"Each additional ton of carbon has these global impacts — there is a tangible difference in terms of death rates," Hannah Hess, associate director at the Rhodium research group, which is part of the Climate Impact Lab consortium that conducted the study, told The Guardian.

"There's a sense of frustration over the lack of progress [at the national level] on climate, but every action at state or local level makes a difference [in terms of lives]," Hess said.