Global Poll Shows Differences in Attitudes Toward Climate Change

A new YouGov study of 30,000 people in 28 countries has uncovered noticeable differences in attitudes around the world towards whether or not climate change is a real problem and the extent to which human activity is responsible for it.

YouGov, a U.K-based online research organization, asked various climate-change related questions, presenting the final findings as charts and graphs depicting the differences in opinion around the world. 

The poll concluded that the U.S. residents are most likely to believe that climate change isn’t happening (6%) or if it is, it has nothing to do with human activity (9%).

Across the world, people tend to expect that climate change will have an impact on their own lives, finds the study. There is, however, a notable East/West divide. “People in Eastern and Middle Eastern countries tend to be much more likely to think that climate change will have a great impact than those in the West,” it claimed.  

When asked which countries in particular they blame, the finger is pointed primarily at China and the U.S. – the largest greenhouse gas emitters – with India further away in third place.

In 24 of the 28 countries surveyed, slowing the rate at which we consume resources is the preferred means by which we should combat climate change, as opposed to relying on technological innovation.

In 25 of the 28 countries polled, people were more likely to say that their country “could be doing more” to tackle climate change than they were to say they are “doing as much as it reasonably can."

Read this article in its entirety in the October 2019 issue of Accelerate Magazine.