A massive Reachtel poll of 10,271 people has found a thumping majority of Australians oppose the government cutting $1 billion from the Australian Renewable Energy Agency.
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And there is even stronger support for an emissions intensity scheme that would force high emissions power plants to reduce their emissions.
The poll, commissioned by the progressive Australia Institute think-tank and conducted across the country on Tuesday evening, has been released as the Climate Change Authority released a final report that backed some kind of market mechanism - such as an emissions intensity scheme - as part of the push to reduce the nation's emissions.
The Authority's report stated that an emissions intensity scheme "should be part of Australia's toolkit" and that "mechanisms of this type are capable of making significant emissions reductions in a way that is both flexible and scalable".
The ARENA is facing a billion-dollar funding cut by the Turnbull government in its so-called omnibus savings bill, which was introduced to the Parliament on Wednesday.
Labor mostly backed this move during the election campaign as it searched for savings, though it did plan to keep $300 million in funding for large-scale solar projects.
The federal opposition is expected to back the cut, though some in Labor are fighting a rearguard action to save ARENA's funding because they believe that unlike Labor, the Turnbull government is not doing enough through other policies to tackle climate change in other areas.
The poll's findings will embolden Labor advocates to fight for ARENA, even as the government steps up pressure to back the omnibus bill.
Fully 55.9 per cent of respondents to the poll said the Senate should not pass the $1 billion cut to ARENA, while 21.2 per cent of people backed the cut and 22.9 per cent said they were unsure.
When asked what action the government should take to address climate change, 57.2 per cent of respondents supported the government introducing "an emissions intensity scheme that forces emissions reductions from high-emissions power plants such as coal generators".
Just 17.9 per cent of people opposed this step, and 24.9 per cent were undecided.
Australia Institute executive director Ben Oquist said the poll showed there was "clearly a hunger for action on climate policy".
"The public are not ideologically attached to any particular mechanism, but they want action to can immediately retiring coal capacity," he said.
"People strongly support more action on climate change, not more politicking. It is time to move on from the ideology of specific mechanisms and towards action that can actually start to retire coal fired electricity capacity. What is being proposed by the Climate Change Authority seems to have the potential to help bridge the partisan divide of recent years."
