More Than One Road to Copenhagen?

At Planet Forward, we've been talking about whether the nation can get off fossil fuels. The respected journal Nature has called the question, reporting this week that the world has to cut back drastically on fossil fuels if it's going to avoid severe climate change.

Two points come to mind, based on what's going on at Planet Forward. First, we've seen a lot of good ideas come in as part of our virtual town square on our energy future. But we've also seen several people (such as here and here) argue that changing our energy mix isn't going to be easy; it's going to be hard. Fossil fuels are the world's default setting on energy. The projections show fossil fuels continuing to be a huge part of our energy resources, unless the world changes drastically.

The second point is while the general public seems ready to reconsider our energy options, the fear of climate change may not be the most powerful argument for most people.

In the Energy Learning Curve survey, conducted by Public Agenda in association with Planet Forward, we found a lot of support for alternative energy and a real potential for consensus building. And we also found that three-quarters of Americans believe we'll need to find alternative sources of energy even if gas prices drop.

But the public's concerns on energy are driven much more by prices and by dependence on foreign oil than by fear of climate change. An overwhelming 9 in 10 Americans (89 percent) say they worry about the cost of gas and fuel. Even more important is the intensity of that concern, with 57 percent saying they worry “a lot.” Eight in ten (83 percent) worry that the U.S. economy is too dependent on oil, with 47 percent saying they worry “a lot.”

But while seven in 10 (71 percent) say they worry about global warming, only 32 percent say they worry "a lot." That's 25 points behind price. It isn't that climate change is off the public' s radar, but it's fair to say that it's a much smaller blip than other worries.

This has major implications for advancing energy policy, and actually implementing any of the compelling ideas seen on Planet Forward. Nature published its report as part of its "Road to Copenhagen" feature, and it's safe to say that most of the delegates on that journey to the international climate conference in December have global warming at the top of their worry list. Lots of effort has been spent trying to put global warming on the top of the public's agenda as well. So far, for most Americans, it still isn't.

But energy prices and oil dependence do resonate with the public, and many of our energy options have promise no matter what you're worried about. When it comes to building support for a new energy policy, political leaders should consider building on the concerns that already worry the public, rather than trying to talk the public into worrying about something else.

In public opinion terms, there may be more than one road to Copenhagen. And it may be faster to bypass the one that's still under construction.