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Friday, Oct. 30, 2020

Do most Americans endorse moving to cleaner energy?

Austin Tannenbaum, Gigafact Foundry
yes

According to a 2019 Pew Research poll, 77% of Americans (90% of Democrats and 62% of Republicans) agree the country's "most important energy priority" should be developing "alternative energy" rather than increasing fossil-fuel production.

As to which alternative, 92% of respondents favor solar-panel farms and 85% favor wind-turbine farms. Meanwhile, 42% favor more offshore oil and gas production, 38% more hydraulic fracking and 35% more coal mining.

In a 2018 Gallup poll, 73% of Americans said they thought the U.S. should prioritize the development of solar and wind over oil, gas and coal. But only 30% supported a dramatic reduction of fossil fuels over the next two decades.

Support for prioritizing climate-change policies has climbed from 30% in 2008 to 52% in 2020.

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Fact briefs are bite-sized, well-sourced explanations that offer clear "yes" or "no" answers to questions, confusions, and unsupported claims circulating online. They rely on publicly available data and documents, often from the original source. Fact briefs are written and published by newsrooms in the Gigafact network.

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