Climate action can lower living costs, a new survey suggests. The finding, from the left-leaning thinktank Climate and Community Institute (CCI) and progressive polling firm Data for Progress, shows 70% of voters – including 65% of Republicans – believe that measures to tackle the climate crisis can also reduce household bills. It runs contrary to the prevailing wisdom in Washington that climate policy is politically toxic and that only economic issues command public attention.
The survey was published to coincide with the launch of CCI’s “Stop Greed, Build Green” platform, which argues that the climate crisis is a core driver of the cost-of-living crisis. “Decarbonisation should be understood not as competing with affordability, but as a potential tool for achieving it,” the thinktank says. The platform represents a direct rebuttal to the narrative, pushed by the Trump administration and amplified by rightwing populists, that environmental protections make life harder and more expensive.
What is green economic populism?
CCI’s framework, which it calls “green economic populism”, aims to make climate policy tangible and affordable for everyday people. It builds on the Green New Deal, the sweeping agenda popularised by the Sunrise Movement and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in 2018, for which CCI served as a policy arm. That earlier movement sought to link decarbonisation with a broad expansion of the social safety net, promising jobs, housing and healthcare alongside a rapid energy transition. But while the Green New Deal was “so big picture that it came to seem unfeasible to a lot of people”, according to Naomi Klein, the prominent author and founding advisory board member of CCI, the new approach focuses on “climate policy you can touch”.
Daniel Aldana Cohen, CCI’s founding co-director, said the aim is to deliver quick, observable wins: lower bills, expanded access to heat pumps, union-built affordable electric vehicles and free electric buses. “We need to show people: ‘Hey, these policies are for you,’” he said. The contrast with the Biden era is deliberate. Despite the scale of the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, only 35% of voters in a 2024 survey said they had heard “a lot” or “some” about it. Cohen argued that its benefits were uneven and often invisible. “One pitfall of the Biden-era climate policy is that its benefits were uneven and often invisible,” he said. Meanwhile, the green jobs created under Biden were a “drop in the bucket” relative to the broader labour market, and underemployment remains a concern.
The new platform homes in on the real pain people are feeling in their everyday lives, said Patrick Bigger, research director at CCI. “True affordability has to fundamentally rewire the hardware that our economy runs on and not the wallets of shareholders and corporate executives,” added Rakeen Mabud, a political economist and senior fellow at CCI. The cost-of-living crisis, the group argues, is exacerbated by the war in Iran, which has driven up fuel prices. In the UK, the RAC Foundation estimates that drivers have paid an additional £307 million for fuel because of the conflict, underscoring the argument that “fossil fuels cause deadly wars and make your life more expensive”, Cohen said.
The platform also echoes long-standing debates on this side of the Atlantic. In the UK, the government aims to install 600,000 heat pumps annually by 2028, but adoption rates lag behind many European countries. Schemes such as the Energy Company Obligation and the Boiler Upgrade Scheme already offer support for insulation and renewable heating, yet nearly 29 million homes require retrofitting by 2050. CCI’s proposal for taxes on polluters to fund climate programmes resonates with existing UK carbon pricing mechanisms, while its call for rent and insurance caps to protect residents from the costs of disasters and green upgrades aligns with ongoing conversations about rent stabilisation and housing affordability.
Building a coalition beyond elections
CCI is not just publishing a paper; it is actively organising. The group launched its “working-class climate agenda” at a New York City event with speakers including Louise Yeung, chief climate officer for Mayor Zohran Mamdani, as well as representatives from the Democratic Socialists of America and Cornell University’s Climate Jobs Institute. A week later it took its message to Washington DC, meeting with lawmakers and hosting a day of panels with former White House officials, congressional staff, scholars, advocates and union leaders.
Mamdani, a democratic socialist, centred his New York City mayoral campaign on affordability while integrating climate policy. “The mayor inspired New Yorkers by putting affordability at the front and centre of his administration, and that extends to how we think about climate solutions,” Yeung said. In Seattle, the new socialist mayor, Katie Wilson, ran on a populist platform that included plans for green social housing. “I think there’s a lot of alignment between my priorities in office and the green economic populism platform,” she said.
Beyond electoral politics, CCI points to organising such as the Chicago Teachers Union linking school investment to climate resilience and tenant campaigns in Minnesota paving the way for energy-efficient upgrades. Ruthy Gourevitch, CCI’s housing director and a former senior policy adviser for Congressman Jamaal Bowman, said the group is engaging with federal lawmakers from progressive mainstays to traditional Democrats. “By meeting with folks who might not necessarily be in the left flank, we can get a better idea of what kinds of green economic populist policies can resonate more broadly. We’re trying to be the research arm of a majoritarian coalition,” she said.
At its Washington DC convening, CCI also welcomed feedback. Labor advocates raised questions about tradeoffs between job quality and cost suppression. Sameera Fazili, who served as a deputy director of the National Economic Council under Biden, questioned whether large-scale public spending plans would gain traction in a high-debt environment. Jigar Shah, who was Biden’s clean energy loans czar, asked whether the plan leans too heavily on price controls and regulation over technological innovation. “It’s the right time to have debates and build consensus,” Shah said. Fazili added that green economic populism could help “tuck climate aims into other policy, into the issues that are the most salient for people”.
Experts say rapid and transformative emissions cuts are still urgently needed, but achieving them will require durable political support. “The really big emissions wins come from the broader structural transformation that we need to win in the long term,” said Patrick Bigger. “To get there, we need buy-in.”
