Social Europe

politics, economy and employment & labour

  • Themes
    • Global cities
    • Strategic autonomy
    • War in Ukraine
    • European digital sphere
    • Recovery and resilience
  • Publications
    • Books
    • Dossiers
    • Occasional Papers
    • Research Essays
    • Brexit Paper Series
  • Podcast
  • Videos
  • Newsletter
  • Membership

Climate change: what Europeans think

Rory Fitzgerald 27th September 2022

The latest European Social Survey shows rising concern about climate change. But is it enough?

climate change,European Social Survey,ESS
Fighting a forest fire this summer in Portgual, where most people are ‘very’ or ‘extremely’ worried about climate change (Tanya.tuzyk/shutterstock.com)

The European Social Survey (ESS) is an academically driven survey which has been conducted across Europe every two years since 2002. It was developed to offer academics a reliable comparative dataset, covering the general population across much of Europe and measuring long-term trends.

The questionnaire includes almost 200 questions on topics such as crime and justice, democracy, discrimination, Europe, government, health and wellbeing, identity, immigration, media, political values and participation, religion and institutional and social trust. The data, collected from respondents and weighted to be representative of the national population of each country, can be analysed against a range of demographic social categories.

Additionally, in each round of the ESS, two topics are covered in more depth, following a call for proposals. During round eight (2016-17), this led to the inclusion of around 30 questions on climate change and energy—initially proposed by a team of climate researchers led by Wouter Poortinga (Cardiff University).

Three of these questions were also asked in round ten (2020-22). Due to measures implemented to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, the fieldwork period for this latest iteration of the survey was extended. This means that we currently have data from ten countries, collected via in-person interviews. Seven of these also participated in round ten, and we can already see some interesting trends in responses collected four to six years apart.


Become part of our Community of Thought Leaders


Get fresh perspectives delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for our newsletter to receive thought-provoking opinion articles and expert analysis on the most pressing political, economic and social issues of our time. Join our community of engaged readers and be a part of the conversation.

Sign up here

Majority worried

The 2016-17 round of our survey already indicated concern about climate change. In all 23 countries involved, a majority of respondents indicated that they were ‘somewhat’, ‘very’ or ‘extremely’ worried about it. In aggregate, those ‘worried’ ranged from a high of almost 90 per cent in Spain to a low of around 60 per cent in Czechia, Estonia and Israel.

In places such as Portugal and Spain, where higher temperatures caused by climate change may appear even more pronounced, around half of respondents were very or extremely worried. This compared with only 15 per cent in Estonia and Poland (Figure 1).

Figure 1: ‘How worried are you about climate change?’ (%, 2016-17)

climate change,European Social Survey,ESS

The proportion of those who were very or extremely worried in 2016-17 increased in all seven countries where the 2020-22 data are currently available. There was a particularly large increase in several: by 17 percentage points in Slovenia, 16 in Hungary and Czechia, 15 in Lithuania and almost ten in Estonia and Finland.

In absolute terms, in all ten countries where round-ten data are available, at least two-thirds of respondents are somewhat, very or extremely worried about climate change. This ranges from slightly more than 60 per cent in Slovakia to 90 per cent in Hungary and Slovenia (Figure 2).

Only in Portugal, however, are over 50 per cent of respondents very or extremely worried. This underlines that there are still many people in Europe who would not yet see a ‘climate emergency’—climate scientists and environmentalists still have some way to go to convince them.

Figure 2: ‘How worried are you about climate change?’ (%, 2020-22)

climate change,European Social Survey,ESS
The percentage point increase indicated in the red bars indicates the change from 2016-17

Personal responsibility

We also asked respondents whether they felt a personal responsibility to reduce climate change. Answers were given on an 11-point scale, from zero (none at all) to ten (a great deal). We plotted the mean national score for all respondents in both rounds (Figure 3).

Figure 3: perceived personal responsibility to reduce climate change (mean, 2016-17 and 2020-22)

climate change,European Social Survey,ESS

In the seven countries where data are available for both rounds, we see an increase in the overall national level of adduced personal responsibility. This is again a significant increase in many places—by over one point in Hungary (1.5), Estonia (1.2) and Lithuania (1.2), and one point exactly in Czechia and Slovenia. In France and Finland—where we saw higher mean scores in 2016-17—there were a small and a non-significant increase respectively (0.6 and 0.3 points) by 2020-22.


Support Progressive Ideas: Become a Social Europe Member!


Support independent publishing and progressive ideas by becoming a Social Europe member for less than 5 Euro per month. You can help us create more high-quality articles, podcasts and videos that challenge conventional thinking and foster a more informed and democratic society. Join us in our mission - your support makes all the difference!

Become a Social Europe Member

Causes of climate change

We also asked respondents in both rounds whether they thought climate change was caused by natural processes, human activity or both. Overall, a majority of respondents in the ten countries where round-ten data are available believe that climate change is caused by human activity or about equally by natural processes and human activity (Figure 4).

Figure 4: climate change caused by natural processes, human activity or both (%, 2020-22)

climate change,European Social Survey,ESS

In six of the seven countries where data are available over time, we found an increase in the proportion of respondents who think that climate change is caused by human activity. This increased ranged from over eight percentage points in France to barely any change in Estonia.

In five of these countries, there was a reduction in the proportion of respondents who felt that climate change was caused by natural processes in round ten, compared with round eight. Only in Hungary did we find a reduction in the proportion of respondents who felt that climate change was caused by human activity (Figure 5).

Figure 5: changes in proportions of respondents allocating causes of climate change to natural processes and human activity, 2016-17 to 2020-22 (percentage points)

climate change,European Social Survey,ESS

Growing consensus

With the most recent ESS data (2020-22) now available for ten countries, including seven where data are comparable to 2016-17, some preliminary conclusions can be drawn. It appears that concern about climate change has increased over time and that respondents now feel more personal responsibility to try to reduce it.

There seems also to be a growing consensus that climate change is caused by human activity. In only one of these ten countries, however, do most people say they are very or extremely worried about it.

Our next data release, in late November, will add 15 countries, facilitating a fuller picture. This will enable us to see whether the growing concern about climate change and increasing willingness to take personal responsibility are replicated elsewhere.

All data analysis included in this article was undertaken with design weights only; post-stratification weights will be applied in later analysis. All ESS data are freely available for non-commercial use

Rory Fitzgerald
Rory Fitzgerald

Prof Rory Fitzgerald became director of the European Social Survey European Research Infrastructure (ESS ERIC) in 2013, having been a senior research fellow working on the project at the City University of London from 2004. He is an associate editor of the journal Survey Research Methods.

You are here: Home / Ecology / Climate change: what Europeans think

Most Popular Posts

Russia,information war Russia is winning the information warAiste Merfeldaite
Nanterre,police Nanterre and the suburbs: the lid comes offJoseph Downing
Russia,nuclear Russia’s dangerous nuclear consensusAna Palacio
Belarus,Lithuania A tale of two countries: Belarus and LithuaniaThorvaldur Gylfason and Eduard Hochreiter
retirement,Finland,ageing,pension,reform Late retirement: possible for many, not for allKati Kuitto

Most Recent Posts

OECD,inflation,monetary The OECD and the Great Monetary RestrictionRonald Janssen
prostitution,Europe,abolition Prostitution is not a free choice for womenLina Gálvez Muñoz
Abuse,work,workplace,violence Abuse at work: who bears the brunt?Agnès Parent-Thirion and Viginta Ivaskaite-Tamosiune
Ukraine,fatigue Ukraine’s cause: momentum is diminishingStefan Wolff and Tetyana Malyarenko
Vienna,social housing Vienna social-housing model: celebrated but misusedGabu Heindl

Other Social Europe Publications

strategic autonomy Strategic autonomy
Bildschirmfoto 2023 05 08 um 21.36.25 scaled 1 RE No. 13: Failed Market Approaches to Long-Term Care
front cover Towards a social-democratic century?
Cover e1655225066994 National recovery and resilience plans
Untitled design The transatlantic relationship

Hans Böckler Stiftung Advertisement

WSI European Collective Bargaining Report 2022 / 2023

With real wages falling by 4 per cent in 2022, workers in the European Union suffered an unprecedented loss in purchasing power. The reason for this was the rapid increase in consumer prices, behind which nominal wage growth fell significantly. Meanwhile, inflation is no longer driven by energy import prices, but by domestic factors. The increased profit margins of companies are a major reason for persistent inflation. In this difficult environment, trade unions are faced with the challenge of securing real wages—and companies have the responsibility of making their contribution to returning to the path of political stability by reducing excess profits.


DOWNLOAD HERE

ETUI advertisement

The future of remote work

The 12 chapters collected in this volume provide a multidisciplinary perspective on the impact and the future trajectories of remote work, from the nexus between the location from where work is performed and how it is performed to how remote locations may affect the way work is managed and organised, as well as the applicability of existing legislation. Additional questions concern remote work’s environmental and social impact and the rapidly changing nature of the relationship between work and life.


AVAILABLE HERE

Eurofound advertisement

Eurofound Talks: does Europe have the skills it needs for a changing economy?

In this episode of the Eurofound Talks podcast, Mary McCaughey speaks with Eurofound’s research manager, Tina Weber, its senior research manager, Gijs van Houten, and Giovanni Russo, senior expert at CEDEFOP (The European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training), about Europe’s skills challenges and what can be done to help workers and businesses adapt to future skills demands.

Listen where you get your podcasts, or for free, by clicking on the link below


LISTEN HERE

Foundation for European Progressive Studies Advertisement

The summer issue of the Progressive Post magazine by FEPS is out!

The Special Coverage of this new edition is dedicated to the importance of biodiversity, not only as a good in itself but also for the very existence of humankind. We need a paradigm change in the mostly utilitarian relation humans have with nature.

In this issue, we also look at the hazards of unregulated artificial intelligence, explore the shortcomings of the EU's approach to migration and asylum management, and analyse the social downside of the EU's current ethnically-focused Roma policy.


DOWNLOAD HERE

About Social Europe

Our Mission

Article Submission

Membership

Advertisements

Legal Disclosure

Privacy Policy

Copyright

Social Europe ISSN 2628-7641

Social Europe Archives

Search Social Europe

Themes Archive

Politics Archive

Economy Archive

Society Archive

Ecology Archive

Follow us

RSS Feed

Follow us on Facebook

Follow us on Twitter

Follow us on LinkedIn

Follow us on YouTube