Republican voters are split on many issues surrounding climate change, and more than half want carbon dioxide regulated as a pollutant.

The finding came from an analysis the Yale University Project on Climate Change Communications released Monday, based on three years of surveys.

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The analysis found that 56 percent of Republicans support regulating carbon as a pollutant, compared with 70 percent of all registered voters.

Most subsets of Republicans also have majorities who support carbon regulation, including 71 percent of liberal Republicans, 74 percent of moderates and 54 percent of conservatives.

Only 36 percent of Tea Party Republicans support carbon regulation as a pollutant, Yale said.

Yale said the findings come in contrast to the priorities of Republicans in Congress, most of whom oppose rules designed to curb climate change and want to overturn the Environmental Protection Agency’s carbon limits for power plants.

“A look at public opinion among Republicans over the past few years finds a more complex — and divided — Republican electorate,” it said.

Most liberal and moderate Republicans believe that global warming is happening, Yale said. But that belief is not shared by the majority of more conservative members of the party, nor with the party as a whole.

The liberal and moderate segments of the GOP also support strict carbon limits for coal-fired power plants, Yale said.