Abstract

Public attitudes toward climate change in the United States are strongly related to political identity, but also shaped by socio-demographic factors that interact in complex ways. This study uses Conditional Inference Trees (CIT) to examine how political identity and socio-demographic characteristics, including education, income, age, and ethnicity, are associated with climate skepticism and support for specific climate and energy policies, using Gallup Poll Social Series survey data from US adults collected between 2000 and 2020. The models show that party identification is the factor most strongly associated with climate change perception, and they show how age, education, income, and ethnicity are associated with differences within parties. Extending the analysis from simple climate beliefs to 14 finer-grained policy proposals, we examine how support for these policies varies both across and within partisan …

Date

2026

Authors

Yidan Sun, Mayank Kejriwal

Journal

Humanities and Social Sciences Communications

Publisher

Palgrave