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  • Perspective
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Supply, demand and polarization challenges facing US climate policies

Nature Climate Change volume 14, pages 134–142 (2024)Cite this article

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Abstract

The United States recently passed major federal laws supporting the energy transition. Analyses suggest that their successful implementation could reduce US emissions more than 40% below 2005 levels by 2030. However, achieving maximal emissions reductions would require frictionless supply and demand responses to the laws’ incentives and implementation that avoids polarization and efforts to repeal or undercut them. In this Perspective, we discuss some of these supply, demand and polarization challenges. We highlight insights from social science research, and identify open questions needing answers, regarding how to address these challenges. The stakes are high. The success of these new laws could catalyse virtuous cycles in the energy transition; their failure could breed cynicism about major government spending on climate change.

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Fig. 1: Spending and targets of recent US climate policies.
Fig. 2: Federal permitting times and construction productivity.
Fig. 3: Partisanship of climate policy and opinion.
Fig. 4: Virtuous cycles.

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Acknowledgements

We thank the participants of an October 2022 workshop on Social Science and Sustainability Technology at the University of Colorado Boulder for helpful comments and insights that inspired this article. We thank the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (M.G.B., M.B. and L.D.) and the Center for Creative Climate Communication and Behavior Change (L.V.B.) at the University of Colorado Boulder for funding.

Author information

Author notes

  1. Lisa Dilling

    Present address: Environmental Defense Fund, Boulder, CO, USA

  2. These authors contributed equally: Matthew G. Burgess, Leaf Van Boven, Gernot Wagner, Gabrielle Wong-Parodi.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Social and Environmental Futures, Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO, USA

    Matthew G. Burgess, Maxwell Boykoff & Lisa Dilling

  2. Department of Environmental Studies, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO, USA

    Matthew G. Burgess, Maxwell Boykoff, Lisa Dilling & Peter Newton

  3. Department of Economics, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO, USA

    Matthew G. Burgess

  4. Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO, USA

    Leaf Van Boven

  5. Center for Creative Climate Communication and Behavior Change, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO, USA

    Leaf Van Boven & Maxwell Boykoff

  6. Columbia Business School, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA

    Gernot Wagner

  7. Earth System Science, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA

    Gabrielle Wong-Parodi

  8. Woods Institute for the Environment, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA

    Gabrielle Wong-Parodi

  9. Social Sciences Division, Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA

    Gabrielle Wong-Parodi

  10. Department of Civil, Environmental and Architectural Engineering, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO, USA

    Kyri Baker

  11. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Institute, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO, USA

    Kyri Baker

  12. Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, USA

    Benjamin A. Converse

  13. Department of Psychology, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, USA

    Benjamin A. Converse

  14. Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA

    Jonathan M. Gilligan

  15. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA

    Jonathan M. Gilligan

  16. Department of Psychology, University of Toronto Scarborough, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

    Yoel Inbar

  17. Department of Environmental Conservation, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA, USA

    Ezra Markowitz

  18. Frederick S. Pardee Center for International Futures, Josef Korbel School of International Study, University of Denver, Denver, CO, USA

    Jonathan D. Moyer

  19. Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA

    Kaitlin T. Raimi

  20. Department of Community Development and Applied Economics, University of Vermont, Burlington, VT, USA

    Trisha Shrum

  21. Vanderbilt University Law School, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA

    Michael P. Vandenbergh

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Contributions

M.G.B., L.V.B., G.W., G.W.-P., K.B., M.B., B.A.C., L.D., J.M.G., Y.I., E.M., J.D.M., P.N., K.T.R., T.S. and M.P.V. conceptualized the paper. M.G.B. and G.W.-P. analysed and visualized the data. M.G.B., L.V.B., G.W. and G.W.-P. wrote the first draft. M.G.B., L.V.B., G.W., G.W.-P., K.B., M.B., B.A.C., L.D., J.M.G., Y.I., E.M., J.D.M., P.N., K.T.R., T.S. and M.P.V. contributed to revisions.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Matthew G. Burgess, Leaf Van Boven, Gernot Wagner or Gabrielle Wong-Parodi.

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Nature Climate Change thanks Jonathan H. Adler, Peter Howe and Jean-Francois Mercure for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Burgess, M.G., Van Boven, L., Wagner, G. et al. Supply, demand and polarization challenges facing US climate policies. Nat. Clim. Chang. 14, 134–142 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-023-01906-y

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