Top Democratic Pollsters See ‘Growing National Consensus’ on Climate Change

Nine top Democratic pollsters argue in a new memo that there is a “significant and growing national consensus” about the need to address climate change, a message aimed at bolstering President Barack Obama’s global warming agenda less than two weeks before high-stakes international negotiations in Paris.

The memo, which was shared first with POLITICO, synthesizes the results of recent public opinion polls on climate change and renewable energy. It says a “large majority” of the public see climate change as a “serious problem” that requires action and there is support across party lines for Obama’s climate regulations for power plants.

“Increasingly, opposition to any regulation of carbon pollution emissions and doing nothing about climate change are politically indefensible propositions for officeholders or candidates, especially when those positions are tied to financial contributions from coal, oil, and gas interests,” the memo says.

The memo also makes the case that millennials are “are especially hostile to politicians who deny the reality of climate change.”

Read the full memo here.

*Image credited to David Wasserman, Getty Images