Has there ever been a national Green poll done in Ireland?

supremenovice

Ive never actually seen any stats about what the general opinion about climate change/green issues in Ireland. Is there any such report?
Im wondering what the percentages are of Irish people who really believe that climate change is a serious threat to the country and if they actually 'believe' in climate change at all.
There are ceratinly a number of journalists who rubbish climate change and are against any sort of 'scare mongering'.
Just wondering has anyone any idea what the national mood is towards this.

bigtam

A Eurobarometer survey (EU opinion surveys) has just been published which shows that 65% of Irish respondents consider climate change to be a very serious problem, 23% consider it be a fairly serious problem and just 8% do not consider it to be a serious problem. Although above the EU average, Ireland ranks 19th in terms of the number of respondents who consider climate change to be a very serious problem. Respondents in Ireland feel better informed about climate change and it's causes now compared to spring 2008. Ireland ranks highly (4th) in terms of respondents who consider fighting climate change can have a positive impact on the European economy. More power to the Green New Deal?

Oddly, despite the apparent enlightenment of Irish respondents, 50% think that CO2 emissions have only a marginal impact on climate change. So climate change - bad -ish, reducing CO2 emissions - so so.

Full report is at http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/archives/eb_special_en.htm

supremenovice

Cheers for that Tam.
It is interesting to note 50% think Co2 emissions have only a marginal effect. I think we as a society feel threatened by the Green Party that they will try put our cars financialy out of reach so it suits us to say that Co2 emissions are not that important to send a message to stop putting taxes on our cars

bigtam

There's a wee bit more to CO2 emissions than cars and I am not sure that the folk being surveyed would be focused entirely on sending a message to the Green Party (whose policy is to encourage polluters to stop polluting, not simply to tax cars).

The response to the CO2 question is problematic. It doesn't relate to the trends and relationships in data that occur elsewhere in the survey. Are we a really a nation of climate change deniers? The rest of the survey suggests not. The question really needs further investigation before conclusions can be drawn. For example if respondents believe CO2 emissions have only a marginal impact on climate change, what do they believe has a significant effect on climate change. And why do they think that climate change is a stoppable process that we can do something about (62% of Irish respondents). More questions than answers really.

monument

bigtam wrote: »

There's a wee bit more to CO2 emissions than cars...

Yes, but transport accounts for a large percentage of Irish emissions.

bigtam wrote: »

Are we a really a nation of climate change deniers?

No, but it seems like many people are in denial that they are part of the problem. For example, somebody can accept climate change is a problem but be in denial about their affect on climate change. From car use, air travel, lack of recycling etc, etc.

And then there's those who try to claim it does not matter because Ireland makes up so little of world wide emissions (as is apparently sent in by listeners to nearly every debate on climate change on Irish radio).

bigtam

The point I make is that we have to acknowledge that transport is only one of the big three polluters in Ireland.

Transport accounts for around 28% of CO2 emissions in Ireland. Industry accounts for around 30% and residential output of CO2 is around 29% of total CO2 emissions (CSO). Transport is most significant insofar as it has seen the largest increase in CO2 emissions over the last ten to fifteen years. Bottom line is we need to take urgent action to curb emissions in all areas.

Maybe people are in denial about their impact on climate change. The Eurobarometer survey doesn't state this and it isn't easy to draw this conclusion from the data. What it actually states is that 50% of Irish respondents think Co2 emissions have only a marginal effect on climate change. It would be useful to know why.