Data for Climate Progress 12.30.2020 - End of Year Edition.
Welcome to the special year-end roundup edition of the Data for Climate Progress Newsletter, your update on new research, blog posts and memes from the Data for Progress climate team: Julian Brave NoiseCat, Marcela Mulholland and Danielle Deiseroth. Trust me, we’re just as glad 2020 is over as you are.
What We’ll Be Watching in 2021
Georgia Runoffs
The Georgia Senate runoff elections—which will determine the fate of the Senate, and the extent to which Biden can enact his policy agenda—are right around the corner. Data for Progress polled likely Georgia runoff voters on the Senate races and a variety of progressive policy issues, including climate change.
What Can Biden Do?
Depending on how the runoffs play out, Biden will need a game plan for how to move forward policy change with or without Congress. As Danielle and Marcela have written elsewhere, Biden can move a significant portion of his agenda through the executive and agencies. (Although the Courts will be a problem.) And, encouragingly, as the recent passage of incremental climate legislation suggests, bipartisanship might not be completely dead.
State Leadership on Climate
With the potential for legislative movement at the federal level in limbo, we will be looking to states like New York to provide leadership on progressive climate policy. The New York Renews coalition that successfully passed the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act is now organizing to pass the Climate and Community Investment Act to ensure a just transition for New York. Stay tuned for more.
Polling: the Best of 2020
Joe Biden moved left on climate, and voters truly did love to see it.
After President-elect Biden unveiled his new climate platform in July, Data for Progress assessed voter attitudes towards this historically ambitious plan.
Voters were overwhelmingly supportive of Biden’s Build Back Better Agenda, especially his plan to create millions of new good-paying jobs while setting the U.S. on a path to achieve a 100% clean energy electricity grid by 2035.
Biden earned voters' trust on addressing the climate crisis.
By a 20-point (!) margin, voters said they trusted Biden over Trump to handle climate change, more than any other major policy issue that we tested.
Environmental justice measures are overwhelmingly popular
In our polling memo with Evergreen Action, Data for Progress found that voters are very concerned about pollution in their communities and that they support several environmental justice measures that President-elect Biden could enact.
A new federal “equity mapping” initiative enjoys the support of over two thirds of voters (67 percent), including a majority of Democrats (77 percent), independents (60 percent), and Republicans (61 percent).
Voters support the Environmental Justice for All Act and the Climate Equity Act
These pieces of legislation, which were both co-sponsored by Vice President-elect Kamala Harris, enjoy high levels of support among voters.
One provision from the Climate Equity Act that President-elect Biden could implement, creating an independent Office of Climate and Environmental Justice Accountability, enjoys strong bipartisan support from three quarters of Democrats (75 percent), a plurality of independents (49 percent), and a plurality of Republicans (43 percent).
Cancel culture's next victim: Fossil fuels
Polling we conducted with Fossil Free Media found that voters are more than ready to leave fossil fuels behind and transform our economy to clean energy.
Contrary to President Trump’s talking points, a plurality of all voters (50 percent) agree that minimizing our reliance on fossil fuels will give us the opportunity to create millions of new good-paying jobs in clean energy and combat the climate crisis.
In the presidential debates, Trump proclaimed that Joe Biden would lose precious “fossil fuel voters” because he was secretly colluding with AOC and the Squad to raise electricity bills and take away airplanes.
Arguably the best polling Data for Progress did this year was testing Trump’s absolutely absurd statement—in fact, his exact phrasing—about the Green New Deal reportedly calling for shrinking windows against Biden’s talking points about his clean energy plan. Luckily, voters didn’t buy Trump’s schtick, with an overwhelming majority (61 percent) finding Biden’s clean energy plan messaging more persuasive. That said, 42 percent of Republicans—Trump’s inherent base—did believe this conjecture.
Democrats really needed better messaging on fracking.
In an op-ed for The Nation, Danielle and Julian analyzed voters’ support for a fracking ban both before and after the first presidential and vice-presidential debates.
After back-and-forth exchanges with their opponents where both Biden and Harris vehemently denied their administration would ban fracking, support for a fracking ban dropped a whopping seven points.
Policy
Deb for Interior <3
A few weeks ago, Representative Deb Haaland was nominated to be the next Secretary of the Interior. Julian and the DFP team put a ton of work into making this happen. You can read Julian’s Politico Magazine profile of the Congresswoman and what her nomination might mean for Indian Country and the Democratic Party here.
Innovation for the Win
Earlier this year, Jake Higdon and Arjun Krishnaswami published a report, policy recommendations and polling memo on a Progressive Climate Innovation Agenda. Investments in energy and technological innovation have some bipartisan support that we think could translate into policy momentum in 2021 and beyond. Their report provides a framework of principles as well as specific recommendations and data to guide a progressive approach to innovation–something we feel has been lacking in the policy debate thus far.
Dave Roberts wrote about it in Vox.
Love Language: Public Options for Finance
Throughout 2020, left-leaning wonks debated what if any new public financial institutions would be needed for a just transition, with Saule Omarova’s National Investment Authority proposal, published by Data for Progress, getting some special attention. The asset management arm of the proposal—”Nicky Mac”—is especially novel. Stay tuned for more in 2021.
Equity Mapping and Screening
President-Elect Joe Biden campaigned on an ambitious environmental and climate justice platform. Julian and Marcela made the case for one approach to revamp and expand on existing federal equity mapping and screening initiatives in an essay for Vox.
We <3 Local Candidates
We launched our first ever Green New Deal Slate of local candidates who are climate champions and raised over $200k for their races. We hope to uplift and support more local climate champions in 2021.
Greatest DFP Media Hits
Politico (Julian reporting)
Crooked (Danielle and Marcela op-ed)
Vice (Marcela and Julian op-ed)
Vox (Marcela and Julian op-ed)
The Nation (Danielle and Julian op-ed)
Earthjustice (Marcela personal essay)
Winning the Green New Deal (Julian wrote a chapter)
Meme
