Public opinion on North American climate policy

Join us for a conversation about what the Canadian, United States, and Mexican public thinks about climate change, and about how government policy should address it.

Christopher P. Borick (Muhlenberg College) and Erick Lachapelle (University of Montreal) will present brand new data from their ongoing survey of public opinion in Canada and the United States. Itzkuauhtli Zamora Saenz will discuss Mexican public opinion as it relates to policy proposals in the Mexican Congress.

From the speakers' bios

Christopher P. Borick is Professor of Political Science and Director of the Muhlenberg College Institute of Public Opinion. He is a nationally recognized public opinion researcher who has conducted over 400 large-scale public opinion surveys during the past quarter century. The results of these surveys have appeared in numerous periodicals including The Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, and The Guardian. He has also provided analysis for the BBC, National Public Radio, PBS, MSNBC, CBS News, and NBC Nightly News, and has had his survey results aired on CNN, FOX News, and C-SPAN. He is Director of the National Surveys on Energy and the Environment (NSEE) and currently conducts surveys for the Morning Call newspaper in Allentown, Pennsylvania. He has government experience at both the federal and local levels, including positions with the Internal Revenue Service and the Monroe County (Pennsylvania) Planning Commission. He has published over thirty articles and four books in the areas of public policy, public opinion, and environmental policy.

Erick Lachapelle is an associate professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Montreal. He is the principal investigator for the Canadian Surveys on Energy and the Environment (CSEE). He has written widely on climate change public opinion in Canada and the United States, and has published articles in Global Environmental Politics, Energy Policy, Environmental Politics, Policy Studies Journal, and the Canadian Journal of Political Science, among other journals.

Itzkuauhtli Zamora Saenz is a researcher at the Dominguez Belisario Institute of the Senate of Mexico in the area of public opinion in parliamentary work. He holds a doctorate in Sociology from the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences in Mexico (FLASCO-Mexico). He held a postdoctoral fellowship at the Institute for Social Research at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). He was Coordinator of Special Projects for the Urban Studies program at UNAM. He has taught at UNAM and the Mora Institute, and is currently part of the National System of Research in Mexico.

North American Colloquium

This event is part of the 2020-21 North American Colloquium (NAC), organized by the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy with generous support from the Meany Family Foundation, and co-sponsored by the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy at the University of Toronto and the Center for Research on North America at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. The objective of the NAC is to provide a forum that strengthens a wider North American conversation and more fruitful trilateral cooperation between Canada, Mexico and the U.S. Sign up for more information about this year's NAC here.

Faculty Expert

Barry Rabe

J. Ira and Nicki Harris Family Professor of Public Policy

Rabe examines the political feasibility and durability of environmental and energy policy, with a particular emphasis on efforts to address climate change in the U.S. and other federal systems. His most recent books examine the politics of carbon pricing and the limitations of unilateral executive branch policy actions. Current research explores the politics of intensive but short-lived greenhouse gases, such as methane and HFCs. Recent policy engagement includes work with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Interior, the Department of Commerce, and the Oklahoma Corporation Commission.

• climate policy
• climate
• International Policy Center
• North American Colloquium Climate Series
• energy and electricity
• energy and environment
• Christopher P. Borick
• Erick Lachapelle
• Itzkuauhtli Zamora Saenz
• North American Colloquium