Views on Climate Change

Today's Essential Report gives an update on Australians' attitudes on climate change.

The report asks:

Do you believe that there is fairly conclusive evidence that climate change is happening and caused by human activity or do you believe that the evidence is still not in and we may just be witnessing a normal fluctuation in the earth’s climate which happens from time to time?

Thankfully, more than half (53%) of respondents agree that "Climate change is happening and is caused by human activity". Unfortunately, this leaves around a third (35%) who think "We are just witnessing a normal fluctuation in the earth’s climate" and 12% who responded as "don't know".

Essential Media polling on climate change

What is really interesting about these polls is how much the views fluctuate over time; more than can be attributed to sampling variations. It is bizarre that people can change their opinion so much on whether something is or isn't scientific fact. Perhaps people change their truths to suit their beliefs. For example, note that belief in anthropogenic climate change dropped significantly in December 2010, a couple of months after Labor's "broken promise" on carbon pricing. It appears that anger over government policy was enough to influence perceptions of reality.

A big surprise in today's Essential Report is the number of people who support climate change forming part of G20 discussions. The poll asked the following question:

The G20 was established to discuss world economic issues. Some have proposed that climate change should be included in G20 discussions because it is an economic issue as well as an environmental issue. Do you think climate change should be discussed at the G20 meeting?

According to the results, the majority of Australians support this notion, including the majority of Labor voters, the majority of Liberal/National voters and, of course, the majority of Greens voters. This is remarkable considering the same poll indicates that less than one third (31%) of Liberal/National voters believe that climate change is real and cause by humans.

Essential Media polling on whether G20 discussions should include climate change