Survey: Two-thirds of people think climate change is a global emergency

At least two thirds of the world’s population believe that climate change is a global emergency that requires urgent action to combat, a new survey has indicated. The ‘peoples’ climate vote’, the world’s biggest survey on climate change, shows that 64 per cent of the 1.2 million polled from 50 countries considered climate change as a global emergency. Released on January 27, the study, conducted by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and University of Oxford researchers, sought to gauge public opinion on climate change. It is the first time that large-scale polling of public opinion has been conducted on climate change. The survey included over half a million respondents under the age of 18—a key constituency on climate change that is typically unable to vote yet in regular elections. This year is pivotal for countries’ climate action commitments, given the key round of negotiations set to take place at the UN Climate Summit in November in Glasgow, UK. In the survey, respondents were asked if climate change was a global emergency and whether they supported eighteen key climate policies across six action areas: economy, energy, transport, food & farms, nature and protecting people. Results show that people often want broad climate policies beyond the current state of play. For example, in eight of the ten surveyed countries with the highest emissions from the energy sector, majorities backed more use of renewable energy. In four out of the five countries with the highest emissions from land-use change and enough data on policy preferences, there was majority support for conserving forests and land. Nine out of ten of the countries with the most urbanized population backed more use of clean electric cars and buses, or bicycles. UNDP Administrator Achim Steiner said: “The results of the survey clearly illustrate that urgent climate action has broad support amongst people around the globe, across nationalities, age, and gender and education level. But more than that, the poll reveals how people want their policymakers to tackle the crisis. “ He said that from climate-friendly farming to protecting nature and investing in a green recovery from Covid-19, the survey brings the voice of the people to the forefront of the climate debate. “It signals ways in which countries can move forward with public support as we work together to tackle this enormous challenge,” he noted. Researchers weighted the huge sample to make it representative of the age, gender, and education population profiles of the countries in the survey. Policies had wide-ranging support, with the most popular being conserving forests and land with 54 per cent public support, more solar, wind and renewable power with 53 per cent support, adopting climate-friendly farming techniques with 52 per cent and investing more in green businesses and jobs with 50 per cent per cent. Prof. Stephen Fisher, Department of Sociology, University of Oxford, said: “Recognition of the climate emergency is much more widespread than previously thought. We’ve also found that most people clearly want a strong and wide-ranging policy response.” There was very high recognition of the climate emergency among those who had attended university or college in all countries, from lower-income countries such as Bhutan (82 per cent) and Democratic Republic of the Congo (82 per cent), to wealthy countries like France (87 per cent) and Japan (82 per cent). When it comes to age, younger people (under 18) were more likely to say climate change is an emergency than older people. Nevertheless, other age groups were not far behind, with 65 per cent of those aged 18-35, 66 per cent aged 36-59 and 58 per cent of those over 60, illustrating how widely held this view has become.

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Survey: Two-thirds of people think climate change is a global emergency