Majority calls for urgent action in world’s largest survey on climate change
When it comes to age, younger people (under 18) were more likely to say climate change is an emergency than older people
A majority of people has called for urgent wide-ranging action against the adverse effect of climate change in the People's Climate Vote, the largest survey of public opinion on climate change.
Around 64 percent of the respondents of the survey, conducted by the United Nations Development Programme's (UNDP) with the help of the University of Oxford, said they believe climate change is a global emergency, despite the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.
The result of the survey was published on Wednesday, which covered 50 countries with over half of the world's population.
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 in eight of the ten survey countries with the highest emissions from the power sector, majorities backed more 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.
"The results of the survey clearly illustrate that urgent climate action has broad support amongst people around the globe, across nationalities, age, gender and education level. But more than that, the poll reveals how people want their policymakers to tackle the crisis," said UNDP Administrator Achim Steiner.
The innovative survey was distributed across mobile gaming networks in order to include hard-to-reach audiences in traditional polling, like youth under the age of 18.
Professor Stephen Fisher, Department of Sociology, University of Oxford, said, "The Peoples' Climate Vote has delivered a treasure trove of data on public opinion that we've never seen before. 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-raging policy response."
The survey shows a direct link between a person's level of education and their desire for climate action. 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%) and Democratic Republic of the Congo (82%), to wealthy countries like France (87%) and Japan (82%).
When it comes to age, younger people (under 18) were more likely to say climate change is an emergency than older people.
