Poll: Most say US falling short on climate action

Most US citizens think the federal government is not doing enough to combat climate change, while many are unaware of a new law that commits the United States to its largest-ever investment in fighting global warming, a survey has found.

The findings of a poll released Tuesday by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research suggest 62 percent of US citizens believe Washington is doing too little in regard to climate change.

Only 18 percent of those surveyed agreed that the federal government was doing "about the right amount" to halt the rise in global temperatures.

In August, President Joe Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act, which includes about $375 billion to accelerate the expansion of clean energy such as wind and solar power, speeding the transition from oil, coal and natural gas.

Biden and Democratic lawmakers have praised the law as a milestone, and the administration has spent millions touting the bill in the lead-up to the midterm elections.

However, 61 percent of US adults have heard nothing or only a little about the legislation, according to the AP-NORC poll. In addition, almost half think the act won't make much of a difference on climate change, while 14 percent say it will do more to harm efforts.

Leah Stokes, an environmental policy professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, told AP that she wasn't surprised that the climate law is largely unknown, despite it being debated in Congress, approved and signed by Biden.

The law was passed in the summer when people pay less attention to the news, "and it takes time to explain it", especially because many of its provisions have yet to kick in, Stokes said.

The survey, conducted Sept 9-12 with 1,054 adults, found that about half of respondents think government action targeting companies to restrict their carbon emissions is important.

At the Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change in 2019, developed countries promised to mobilize at least $100 billion annually to help poorer nations shift to clean energy and gird themselves against climate change. The promise, reiterated in the 2015 Paris Agreement, hasn't been honored.

As one of the world's biggest emitters of greenhouse gases, the US will largely determine how many people in remote countries will have to endure extreme heat, severe storms and flooding, droughts, and other consequences of climate change, according to the analysis by the US-based Climate Impact Lab.

Due to their high consumption of fossil fuels, if just 10 US states cut emissions to zero it could save 3.7 million lives worldwide, the analysis shows.

"Each additional ton of carbon has these global impacts — there is a tangible difference in terms of death rates," Hannah Hess, associate director at the Rhodium research group, which is part of the Climate Impact Lab, told The Guardian.

"There's a sense of frustration over the lack of progress (at the national level) on climate, but every action at state or local level makes a difference," Hess said.