But just one in five Americans favored increasing taxes on electricity as a way to fight global warming; six in 10 were strongly opposed, including 49 percent of Democrats. And support was not much higher for increasing gasoline taxes, at 36 percent over all.

On Monday, the United Nations began its climate change conference, bringing together representatives from 195 countries and the European Union in an effort to reach a binding agreement to address the warming of the planet. This is the 21st gathering of nations who belong to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, but the first since Copenhagen to elicit high hopes for a global commitment.

At the third such meeting, in 1997, the parties agreed to the Kyoto Protocol, acknowledging the existence of man-made global warming and setting goals for worldwide emissions reductions. But that year the United States Senate voted 95-0 to adopt a measure rejecting any international agreement that “would result in serious harm to the economy of the United States.” The United States never joined the Kyoto treaty.