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Stephen Fisher on Global Climate Opinion
To begin, can you tell us about the background of the Peoples’ Climate Vote survey that the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) fielded together with the University of Oxford recently?
The aim of the Peoples’ Climate Vote was to bring the voices and views of people around the world to the attention of global policymakers with power and responsibility to act on climate change. The survey covered 77 different countries and comprised 87% of the global population. We also used 87 different languages when conducting the survey. Because the UN Development Program is very interested in the views of people in poor countries, 19 of the least developed countries in the world were included. Also, we included 9 of the small island developing states, which are low-lying and therefore very vulnerable to rising sea levels.
How were the questions selected, and how was the data collected? What distinguishes the survey from others examining global attitudes towards climate change?
The survey questions were chosen by the UN Development Program. The program hoped primarily to understand how people feel about climate change, how climate change is affecting their lives, how they think their governments are responding to climate change, and how they feel about international collaboration on climate change. The questions were also designed to be relevant to people from all countries.
Another key feature of the survey is that it was all conducted by telephone with random digit dialing, which means that people could only participate if they were randomly called. The fact that we used telephone and called people directly meant that we reached more diverse individuals, especially in the poorer and smaller countries who might not have access to the mobile phone broadband required to conduct a quality internet poll. The telephone poll also allowed us to use the same survey methodology across different countries.
For leaders and policymakers, especially in the United States and China, what do you think are the major takeaways from this report?
America and China are powerful countries key to the process of reaching agreements on climate change. I hope that people there develop an interest in global public opinion, which, seen from our report, was remarkably united in wanting international collaboration and climate action from all of their respective countries.
Our survey results show that, in the United States and China, large majorities of people want countries to work together on climate change, despite disagreements they may have about other topics like trade or security. 85% of people in China were in favor of global collaboration on climate topics, and the corresponding figure in the United States was 80%.
“Should rich countries give more or less help to poorer countries to address climate change?” 71% of the people in China said more, and the corresponding figure in the US was 64%.
“How worried are you about the effects of climate change on the next generation?” 90% of people in China and 74% of the people in the US were worried for the next generation.
On strengthening commitments to address climate change, 73% of people in China and 66% of people in the US wanted their countries to strengthen their commitments on climate change. Very few, less than 2% in China wanted their country to weaken commitments, whereas 28% of people in the US wanted that. While much larger than 2%, 28% is still a relatively small minority.
People in China, when asked, “How often do you think about climate change?” 37% said they think about it at least weekly, compared with 44% in the US.
We asked about whether climate change was getting worse in terms of where they’re seeing a change in the level of extreme weather events this year compared with the previous year. In China, 39% said that they were more worried this year compared with last year. And in the US that was 51%.
In terms of big decisions, we asked people whether climate change was affecting the big decisions that people had in their lives, such as where to live, where to work, and what to buy. And 68% of people in China said it was affecting their big decisions, only 40% in the US said that.
There were majorities in favor of a quick transition from fossil fuels. So 80% in China, 53% in the US. In terms of protecting nature, it was 79% in China and 76% in the US. In terms of protecting vulnerable people from extreme weather events, 71% in China, 57% in the US. And in terms of whether schools should teach more about climate change, 75% in people in China said they should teach more and 66% in the US.
