Quantifying discourses of climate delay in public opinion: Empirical survey-based evidence from the United States

Discourses of climate delay influence many debates on climate action. Using social science observations, Lamb et al. (2020) identified twelve discourses, organized under four overarching themes, that acknowledge the existence of climate change yet justify inaction or inadequate responses. The four discourse themes include redirecting responsibility for climate action, proposing short-term non-transformative solutions, emphasizing negative effects of climate action, and choosing to surrender. These discourses, often containing elements of truth, are often framed to seem logical and pragmatic, thereby potentially influencing public opinion and postponing effective policy measures. Building on Lamb et al. (2020), we have further developed survey items to measure the public’s adherence to these discourses and test their influence on climate policy support via a representative web-based survey of citizens in the Unites States (n=2,000) with oversamples in the key Democratic and Republican states. The "core item wording" for each discourse is directly retrieved from the descriptive statements provided in Lamb et al.’s supplementary materials—these items succinctly encapsulate the essence of each discourse. To deepen the measurement and understanding of these discourses within public opinion, we have developed two additional survey items per discourse, which offer alternative perspectives and phrasings that capture various facets of each discourse. Organized under the original four overarching themes, our 36 survey items provide a comprehensive tool for assessing public agreement or disagreement with each of the 12 climate delay discourses. Using latent class analysis and a series of regression models, we quantify the importance of each delay technique in influencing public support for different types of climate policies, ranging from carbon pricing to sector-specific regulations and government financing. This development is a crucial step towards better understanding public resistance to climate action and devising strategies to effectively communicate and implement necessary climate policies.