A report published ahead of COP27 by Ipsos showed that sixty-five percent of British citizens support subsidies making environmentally friendly technologies cheaper
Ipsos survey weighs in on climate perceptions and policy choices to be applied
Global warming induced by an increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas emission (GHG) is a phenomenon that the scientific community has warned leaders about for decades. In 1938, English steam engineer and inventor Guy Stewart Callendar linked an increase in carbon dioxide in Earth’s atmosphere to global warming.
American scientist and scholar Roger Revelle co-authored a study in 1957 concluding that the oceans had absorbed most of the Carbon dioxide (CO2) released by fossil fuels combustion since the Industrial Revolution and warned that continued exponential growth of fossil fuels combustion could lead to an increase of atmospheric CO2.
Facing the bunt consequences of climate change
As the Global North leaders ignored scientists’ plea, frontline communities have been facing the blunt consequences of climate change. In the Global North, the public’s attitude towards climate change has shifted between the mid-2010s and the late 2010s.
According to data shared by the British social research institute NatCen Social Research, the percentage of the British public that believes climate change is the principal environmental problem for the nation rose from nineteen percent in 2010 to forty-five percent in 2021.
Surveys related to the belief that climate change is occurring
An AP-NORC survey published in August 2022 revealed that seventy-one percent of the surveyed American residents believe climate change is occurring. Seventeen percent of the surveyed people believe that climate change is caused entirely by human activities, and forty-nine percent believe it is caused mainly by human activities, showing that most of the respondents believe that human activities are altering the climate system to some degree.
Climate change concerns are lower in Japan, the Netherlands, Russia, and China.
The global survey Earth Day 2022: Global attitudes to climate change of 23,577 adults aged between sixteen and seventy-four living in thirty-one countries conducted by Ipsos Global Advisor and published in April 2022 revealed that climate change is a common concern for half of the people across a global country average, with higher percentages registered in Colombia, Chile, Italy, and Mexico. Climate change concerns are lower in Japan, the Netherlands, Russia, and China.
The 2022-2023 EIB Climate Survey published by the European Investment Bank (EIB) revealed that eighty percent of the people surveyed in the European Union and ninety-one percent of the Chinese residents said they feel the effects of climate change on their daily lives. Eighty-eight percent of the people surveyed in Angola, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Egypt, Jordan, Kenya, Morocco, and Tunisia believe the same.
Climate solutions – are people aware of what they are?
According to the report Climate Change 2022: Mitigation of Climate Change by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) ‘s Working Group III, all global modeled pathways limiting warming to one-point-five degrees Celsius with no or limited overshoot and those that limit warming to two degrees Celsius involve rapid and deep reductions in greenhouse gas emissions from all sectors.
Transitioning from fossil fuels without CCS to very low- or zero-carbon energy sources like renewable energy is among the modeled mitigation strategies that contribute to attaining these GHG reductions.
What should be the priority regarding climate?
The 2022-2023 EIB Climate Survey showed that seventy-six percent of respondents from Angola, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Egypt, Jordan, Kenya, Morocco, and Tunisia said renewable energy should be prioritized.
Forty-seven percent of the people surveyed for the same survey in the European Union and forty-five percent of the United Kingdom respondents believe the development of renewable energies should be the priority. Among the people surveyed in China, forty-six percent want the diversification of energy suppliers to be the priority.
A survey conducted by the US think-tank Pew Research Center in January 2022 shows that sixty-nine percent of US residents believe that their country should prioritize the development of alternative energy sources, like solar and wind power, over the expansion of oil, coal, and natural gas production.
Climate change and politics
Politicians and authorities in the global North have been reticent to recognize the threat posed by the climate crisis and regard it as such. Pledges have been failed by Global North leaders, like that of mobilizing 100 billion USD joint per year by 2020 in support of climate action in low-income countries highly affected by climate. To these days, no Global North national government has joined Tuvalu and Vanuatu in developing a Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty, committing to phasing out fossil fuels, which use is the chief cause of global warming.
Earth Day 2022: Global attitudes to climate change survey
When asked how much responsibility, if any, governments, businesses, and individuals around the world have to reduce their contribution to climate change by reducing carbon emissions, seventy-seven percent of the people surveyed for the Earth Day 2022: Global attitudes to climate change survey believed that the government has a great deal or a fair amount of responsibility to do so. A similar proportion of the surveyed individuals feels that businesses and individuals have a great deal or a fair amount of responsibility to decrease their contribution to climate change by lowering their carbon emissions.
Do people believe politicians should do more?
On a global average, thirty-nine percent of the surveyed people agree that their country has a clear plan for how they, businesses, and people will work together to tackle climate change. The highest proportion was in China, with eighty-two percent, and the lowest was in Argentina, with twenty-five percent.
On average, sixty-eight percent of the public believes that if their government doesn’t address climate change now, it will fail its citizens. Most of the surveyed individuals from Chile, Colombia, and South Africa believe this.
The 2022-2023 EIB Climate Survey
Eighty-five percent of the United Kingdom residents and eighty-seven of the European Union residents surveyed for the 2022-2023 EIB Climate Survey feel that their government has been too slow to act in averting climate change. Seventy-six percent of Chinese residents and seventy-four percent of the United States respondents agree.
A report published ahead of COP27 by Ipsos showed that sixty-five percent of British citizens support subsidies that will make environmentally friendly technologies cheaper. From the same document, it emerges that fifty-eight percent of the UK is in favor of changing product pricing, making environmentally friendly products more affordable and damaging goods more expensive.
Consumer attitudes towards businesses’ impact on climate change
In the absence of laws and regulations limiting and homogenizing a product’s or service’s environmental impact, the burden to choose following environmentally-safe principles falls on the consumers, whose options can be limited by accessibility issues related to factors such as their income, health status, and place of residence.
The Ipsos Global Advisor’s survey Earth Day 2022: Global attitudes to climate change revealed that, on average, sixty-eight percent of the public believes that if businesses do not act now to fight climate change, they will be failing their employees and customers.
Despite this belief, the majority of the surveyed individuals feel the personal responsibility to tackle climate change, with seventy percent of the public believing that if individuals do not act now to combat climate change, they will be failing future generations.
How is climate change affecting young people’s mental health and well-being?
The youth is at the forefront of climate change activism with Fridays for Future (FFF), also known as School Strike for Climate (Skolstrejk för klimatet), strikes taking place all over the world. While the youth is fighting for climate action and protesting its lack thereof, their mental health and well-being are affected by the reality of the climate crisis, which intersected with other emergencies such as the Covid-19 pandemic.
A 2021 study by researchers from British, US, and Finnish instructions showed that respondents across ten countries, such as Australia, Brazil, and Finland, were worried about climate change, with more than half of them feeling sad, anxious, angry, powerless, helpless, and guilty. Among the surveyed people, a total of 10 000 children and young people aged between seventeen and twenty-five years, forty-five percent of them affirmed that climate change damages their daily life and functioning.
The lack of action tackling climate change
Another study conducted by researchers from the Institute of Global Health Innovation and the Grantham Institute at Imperial College London and published in September 2022 in Lancet Planetary Health found that the pandemic and climate change are impacting the well-being of young people in the United Kingdom in different ways.
Among the respondents, climate change is associated with feelings of anger, disgust, guilt, and shame. Fifty-four percent of the surveyed young people experienced improved well-being through engaging in eco-friendly practices, and fifty-two percent reported concerns about the lack of action tackling climate change.
Ipsos Group S.A.
Paris-headquartered multinational market research and consulting firm.
