Your 2025 Data for Climate Progress Wrapped
Welcome back to Data for Climate Progress — your one-stop shop for all things climate at Data for Progress.
Welcome back to Data for Climate Progress — your one-stop shop for all things climate at Data for Progress. Catch us here every month for our latest climate polling, juicy insights, and can’t-miss reading lists.
As always, we’d love to hear from you — drop us (Grace Adcox and Catherine Fraser) a line at gracea@dataforprogress.org and catherine@dataforprogress.org. Forwarded this email? You can subscribe below.
We’re not the type of organization that likes to bombard our readers with fundraising asks, but we gotta say: High-quality public opinion research is expensive. In order to fund all of the important projects that we have in store for 2026 — from surveys to focus groups to in-depth message testing — we need your help.
In the spirit of giving, can you commit to making a monthly donation to DFP in the new year?
With your help, 2026 will be our best year yet. We’re not giving up on climate — we’re recommitting to empowering movement partners with the data they need to fight back against authoritarianism and win. Together, we can create a more equitable future.
Introducing … Jenna Scarbrough
Hello, hello! I’m Jenna Scarbrough (she/her), and I recently joined Data for Progress as a polling analyst. I have a background in public opinion research and political communication. My previous work has focused on providing effective, positive, and values-based messaging for progressive advocacy groups working on a variety of issues such as health, housing, and climate. I’m currently based in Portland, Oregon, but I grew up in South Dakota, and I’m grateful for how my rural upbringing has shaped my views on land conservation, economic justice, and community building.
Outside of work, I enjoy learning the banjo, biking around Portland, and maxing out my library card. I’m excited to bring my curiosity and love of learning everywhere I go — especially to Data for Progress.
If you would like to learn more about my work, my interests, how to stop doomscrolling, or how we can mobilize a cynical public, I would love to hear from you. You can contact me at jenna@dataforprogress.org.
DFP @ EPC
DFP’s Grace Adcox presented new research on global climate leadership and on party trust on climate costs and the cost of living at the Environmental Polling Consortium’s fourth quarterly briefing, capping off another successful year of collaborations with the EPC, including fielding and presenting another wave of the EPC Community Poll and giving presentations at three of the quarterly briefings.
USEER Report Bonanza
This month, Data for Progress hosted a webinar bringing together organizations who’ve all authored supplemental reports to the Department of Energy’s annual U.S. Energy and Employment Report (USEER), featuring speakers from Data for Progress, Inclusive Economics, E2, IREC, World Resources Institute, and BW Research Partners. You can find the supplemental report that Data for Progress sponsored here and a recording of the webinar here.
Introducing … Your 2025 Data for Climate Progress Wrapped
As we close out the year, the Data for Progress Climate Team is taking a moment to reflect on our learnings from the past 12 months of public opinion research. Across surveys, focus groups, community workshops, and interviews, we’ve seen that, despite federal setbacks, support for climate action remains strong. The specific dynamics of climate policy may have shifted, but the public is unwavering in its support for energy and environmental policies that address the cost-of-living crisis, deliver clean air and water, protect the most vulnerable communities from the impacts of climate change, and meet the urgency of climate change and climate mitigation needs.
You can find a text version of — and links for — our 2025 Data for Climate Progress Wrapped here.
All Around Colorado in Six Days
This past summer, Data for Progress spent six days in Colorado, hosting workshops in three Colorado coal communities — Pueblo, the West End, and Craig. We logged over 16 hours in the car and over 900 miles on the road — check out our driving route:
Since publishing our Progressive Platform for Carbon Removal in 2021, we’ve held 15 workshops across the country – including in Beaver County, Pennsylvania; Lake Charles, Louisiana; Port Arthur, Texas; Visalia, California; and Rock Springs, Wyoming. These three workshops in Colorado were the latest in this series.
With the state of Colorado planning to phase out coal-fired power by 2031, we first wanted to understand community perspectives on the coal industry and its planned phaseout, as well as attitudes toward the potential development of carbon removal, namely direct air capture (DAC), as a new industry that could help fill the economic void left by coal. To complement these workshops, we fielded a statewide survey of Colorado voters to assess overall views toward the energy transition and carbon removal.
These findings and recommendations identify key opportunities for Colorado, and states interested in following Colorado’s footsteps, to both decarbonize and phase out fossil fuels, and deliver a just transition for workers and communities via bold policy, strong public investment, and deep partnerships between workers, communities, and state and local governments.
Colorado’s ambitious climate goals — including its plan to phase out coal, first-of-its-kind Office of Just Transition, and roadmap to develop carbon removal — present a tremendous opportunity to build policy and momentum around decarbonization, carbon removal, and a just transition. Importantly, no industry will be a one-to-one replacement of coal — or any other fossil fuel — in terms of jobs, economic benefits, and more. But, by asking communities themselves what they envision for their futures, we can collectively build a future that supports workers and communities, and ensures everyone has access to dignity, both in work and in life. Our work in Colorado aimed to do just that.
You can read the full report here.
(No, really, you should read the full report). You can find the executive summary here.
Have you enjoyed our monthly newsletter this year? Do you love seeing polling that highlights the popularity of green economic populism? Are you curious to learn more about how we can break through the noise and reach the voters who decide elections?
If so, please consider making an end-of-year contribution to DFP:
We deeply appreciate your support over the years. Whether you’re a research partner, a policymaker, or a community member who cares about climate, we are so grateful you read this newsletter!
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The Colorado just transition research is solid work. The community workshop apprach you took in coal regions like Pueblo and Craig captures nuances that statewide polling misses. The finding about no industry being a one-to-one replacement for coal jobs is critical, especially when policymakers tend to oversimplify transition narratives. The connection between affordability concerns and support for green economic populism feels especialy relevant given current political dynamics around cost-of-living anxieties.