When Gov. Roy Cooper takes the stage Wednesday at The New York Times’ Climate Forward conference, he plans to deliver a simple message. “North Carolina’s committed to a clean energy future, and we want businesses who share those goals,” Cooper said. Businesses have announced more than $20 billion in clean energy investments in North Carolina, ranging from a spate of battery projects to a solar panel manufacturer to an electric vehicle charging station developer. Still an August poll from High Point University’s Survey Research Center found that addressing climate change was the top priority of only 4% of 1,053 North Carolinians polled. Improving economic conditions was far and away the leading concern, with 27% of those polled choosing it, followed by managing immigration and protecting Social Security and Medicare benefits, both at 11%. Those results aren’t surprising to Cooper, who said voters are most likely to prioritize issues they believe are impacting their daily lives. “It is up to leaders — elected leaders — to make sure that even though they aren’t the most popular campaign issues that they continue to make sure that these policy challenges are faced. Because the long term is so much more difficult to tackle than short-term issues,” said Cooper, who noted that climate change is also having short-term effects in the state, namely in the form of severe storms like the unnamed one that dropped about 20 inches of rain in parts of Southeastern North Carolina last week. Part of the poll’s findings may come down to how it asked the question, Martin Kifer, the Survey Research Center’s director, told The News & Observer. When asked what their top priority is, Kifer said, voters are likely to choose the economy, immigration or national security. But when polls ask voters if an issue is […]
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