How Partisan Is Issue of Climate Change?

• Position: POLITICAL LANDSCAPE

"While subsets of the Republican voting public do not support climate policies and hold views consistent with party elite, Republican climate and energy opinions are more varied than might be presumed from political discourse," says Matto Mildenberger, assistant professor of political science at the University of California, Santa Barbara. "For Democrats, there is consistent support for climate and energy policies, despite variation in belief intensity."

Mildenberger led a study--published in the journal Climatic Change --that maintains there is substantial disagreement on climate change between Republican elites and members of their party. For example, many Republicans in Congress doubt whether climate change is occurring, yet most Republican party members in different states think that global warming indeed is underway. Those Republicans living in New York, Delaware, and Alaska are particularly likely to do so. Still, only a quarter of Republicans in most states believe climate change is both...