A survey released Thursday by the Pew Research Center reveals that older Republicans are driving a decline in Americans’ still-strong support for renewable energy.
While solar and wind power remain popular, support for expanding them has waned. In 2020, solar expansion had the backing of 90 percent of those surveyed; that’s dropped to 78 percent. Wind has seen a similar dip, from 83 percent in 2020 to 72 percent now.
“Although there remains broad public support for renewable energy, the breadth of that support is less widespread than it was four years ago or even a year ago,” said Alec Tyson, the report’s lead author and associate director of research at Pew.
The decline is “due almost entirely to changing views among Republicans,” according to Pew’s report on the polling. Support among Republicans for more solar and wind farms has fallen by about 20 percentage points since 2020.
