Climate change remains big public concern despite pandemic - survey
Clean Energy Wire
Climate change is still perceived as the top problem facing humanity, a survey carried out in seven European countries by Swedish utility Vattenfall has found. The company surveyed 7,200 adults in Sweden, Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark, Finland, France and Britain in December last year and again in June. Nearly a third – 28 percent – saw climate change as the most pressing issue in the world, down slightly from 32 percent in December. Sixty-nine percent still described themselves as “quite” or “a great deal” worried about climate change. “Both these results remain fairly stable when compared to December 2019. It therefore seems that climate change has established itself as a durable worry in the mind of European citizens,” the company said in a statement. Climate change ranked higher than poverty, war and conflict, economic recession, and epidemics or diseases, which saw a sharp rise from six percent to 20 percent between the two surveys.
Climate action has remained a priority for most people in Germany even as the coronavirus pandemic continues to dominate the public agenda. However, a debate around wind power acceptance has repeatedly flared up in the recent past, contributing to the industry's worst slump in 20 years. This has led to calls to make public acceptance a key task of future energy transition policies.
