from Climate Feedback at -
<http://blogs.nature.com/climatefeedback/2007/07/developing_nations_lead_on_con.html>
Developing nations lead on concern for combating climate change, shows survey
Olive Heffernan
HSBC announced the results of their international survey on public attitudes to climate change in London this morning.
The survey found a gulf between public opinion on climate change in developed and developing nations, with people in developing economies showing greater concern, commitment and optimism in solving global warming compared with respondents in developed countries. The results challenge the myth of committed developed world countries leading on climate change with reluctant developing nations trailing behind, said Jon Williams, Head of Group Sustainable Development at HSBC, speaking at the event.
Conducted in 9 countries (UK, France, Germany, USA, Mexico, Brazil, China, Hong Kong and India) during April 2007, the internet survey asked 1000 participants in each nation to rank their level of agreement on four statements on a 1-7 scale (with 1 representing strong disagreement and 7 representing strong agreement) as follows:
“Climate change and how we respond to it are among the biggest issues I worry about today”.
“The people and organisations who should be doing something about climate change are doing what is needed”.
“I am personally making a significant effort to help reduce climate change through how I live my life today”.
“I believe we can stop climate change”.
Europeans, it seems, are a bunch of ‘sceptical pessimists’, with the lowest scores overall. While we are reasonably concerned about climate change, we have little confidence, optimism or commitment in solving it. Only 6% of UK respondents agreed with the statement “I believe we can stop climate change” compared with 18% in the US and 45% in India.
UK respondents also showed a surprising lack of belief that they are making a significant effort to reduce their personal carbon footprint, in contrast to 44% of those interviewed in China, 47% in both Brazil and India and 23% in the US. And why would we? It seems, according to the survey, we’re not really that concerned about climate change, being far more freaked out by terrorism. On levels of concern, UK citizens (22%) and Germans (26%) scored lowest.
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full at -
<http://blogs.nature.com/climatefeedback/2007/07/developing_nations_lead_on_con.html>
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