Research note summary
In this research note we analyze the results of the recent (March - April 2021) Eurobarometer-survey on Europeans’ attitudes and behavior with relation to climate change. We provide graphics and numbers for the following findings:
Firstly, there is a great sense of urgency about climate change among European citizens.
- 17.5% of Europeans consider climate change the single most important problem that the world is facing. This ranks climate change above all other world issues polled.
- Socio-demographic background influences the priority given to the issue of climate change, but not the assessment of how problematic it is.
Second, European citizens expect more action from their governments on tackling climate change.
- Three in four Europeans say their government is not doing enough to tackle climate change.
- Percentages reported for this statement vary over member states. But contrary to the expectations one may hold based on youth protests and strikes demanding action, they do not vary much over different age groups.
Third, we see very strong support among the European population to prioritize or even shift public investment towards sources of clean energy.
- With regards to policies, there is strong support for (dis)investment of public funds from fossil fuel towards green energy, including the funds of the EU economic recovery plan.
- A surprisingly strong majority of Europeans (73,5%) considers the costs of the damages due to climate change much higher than the costs of the investments needed for a green transition.
Fourth, the survey raises questions on who Europeans adapt their individual and consumption choices in response to climate change.
- Undertaking individual, consumption-based actions against climate change is relatively infrequent and shows very strong social class differences.
- Policies focusing on encouraging this type of action against climate change risk increasing inequalities and/or damaging support for effecting climate change policies.
In the fifth section, specific numbers for Belgium can be found.
We therefore conclude that Europeans are highly concerned with the problem of climate change. They demand action from their governments to tackle this problem. Such action should lie with shifts in investment from fossil fuel to green sectors. Policies with a strong focus on changing individual (consumption) behavior to tackle climate change, are not very likely to succeed. In addition, they risk to increase inequalities by rewarding those who are socioeconomically better placed to change their consumption choices.
Altogether, the data stress the need for structural government action and collective measures to tackle the climate crisis. From these analyses, it also becomes very clear how deeply social and climate justice are intertwined, thus stressing the need for a socially just transition.
The climate change problem
When Europeans are presented with a list of societal issues and asked which they consider to be the single most serious problem facing the world as a whole, they put forward climate change as the most serious problem (Table 1). A slightly smaller percentage of Europeans points towards the spread of infectious diseases as the most serious problem, which is very likely due to the survey taking place (March-April 2021) during the COVID-19 pandemic.
With on average 17,5% indicating that climate change is the most serious problem, European’s concern with climate change dwarfs their concern with other transnational issues such as armed conflict (4,4%), terrorism (3,9%), and nuclear weapons (1,8%).
| Europeans consider climate change the most serious problem facing the world | |
|---|---|
| Table 1: Percentage of Europeans selecting the specific issue as the most serious problem facing the world. | |
| World issue | Percentage |
| Climate change | 17.5% |
| Spread of infectious diseases | 16.8% |
| Poverty, hunger and lack of drinking water | 16.6% |
| The economic situation | 14.5% |
| Deterioration of democracy and rule of law | 7.0% |
| Deterioration of nature | 6.6% |
| The increasing global population | 5.7% |
| Health problems due to pollution | 4.5% |
| Armed conflicts | 4.4% |
| International terrorism | 3.9% |
| Proliferation of nuclear weapons | 1.8% |
| Other / None / DK | 0.6% |
| Source: Eurobarometer 95.1, survey-period March 2021 - April 2021. Question: "Which of the following do you consider to be the single most serious problem facing the world as a whole?". | |
Behind this average, significant differences between member states, social and age groups can be uncovered. Sweden (43,1%), Denmark (35,2%) and The Netherlands (34,2%) show the highest percentage of citizens considering climate change as the world problem . In Italy, Greece, Romania and Bulgaria, this percentage is less then 10%. In these countries, issues such as the spread of infectious diseases, the economic situation, poverty, hunger and lack of drinking water, or the economic situation, are selected by a larger percentage of the population, likely reflecting national experiences with COVID-19 or economic conditions.
There are also clear differences by social class, educational level, age, and financial security. Those that are upper (middle) class, longer educated, younger and with less issues paying bills over the last 12 months, more frequently select climate change as the single most important problem facing the world. (Table 2).
Interestingly, these differences largely disappear when we look at the second question, where respondents are no longer forced to make a trade-off between climate change and other problems such as COVID, poverty and the economic situation. When asked to rate how serious a problem climate change is at this moment on a scale from 1 to 10, with ‘1’ meaning it is “not at all a serious problem” and ‘10’ meaning it is “an extremely serious problem” (cf. Figure 1, the degree in which climate change is considered an extremely serious problem barely differs over national and socioeconomic subgroups from an overall average of approximately 8 out of 10.
Figure 1: Response distribution of Europeans’ rating of climate change as a problem.
| Social background influences the priority given to the issue of climate change, but not the assesment of how problematic it is | ||
|---|---|---|
| Table 2: Percentage of Europeans selecting the specific issue as the most serious problem facing the world. | ||
| % selecting climate change as most serious world problem | Average rating how serious the climate change problem is [1-10] | |
| Social class | ||
| Higher and upper middle class | 29.2% | 8.1 |
| Middle class | 18.0% | 8.0 |
| Lower middle class | 16.1% | 7.9 |
| Working class | 12.0% | 7.8 |
| Education | ||
| Tertiary | 26.4% | 8.2 |
| Post-secondary / short-cycle tertiary | 19.3% | 7.9 |
| Secondary | 13.7% | 7.9 |
| No or (pre-)primary | 9.7% | 7.7 |
| Age | ||
| 15-24 | 21.9% | 8.2 |
| 25-39 | 18.6% | 8.0 |
| 40-54 | 16.5% | 7.8 |
| 55-98 | 16.2% | 7.9 |
| Issues paying bills | ||
| Almost never/never | 20.3% | 8.0 |
| From time to time | 12.2% | 7.9 |
| Most of the time | 9.2% | 8.0 |
| Urbanisation | ||
| Large town | 18.6% | 8.0 |
| Rural area or village | 17.3% | 7.8 |
| Small/middle town | 17.0% | 8.0 |
| Source: Eurobarometer 95.1, survey-period March 2021 - April 2021. Questions: "Which of the following do you consider to be the single most serious problem facing the world as a whole?" and "How serious a problem do you think climate change is at this moment? Please use a scale from 1 to 10, with 1 meaning it is "not at all a serious problem" and 10 meaning it is "an extremely serious problem".". | ||
This is illustrated in Figure 2, which shows how the lower percentage of Europeans outside of the upper and higher middle class indicating that climate change is the primary issue facing the world is mainly caused by the higher proportion of those groups worrying about COVID-19, poverty, and the economic situation.
Figure 2: Social class differences in the ranking of work issues as the priority.
This observation again stresses the need for a just climate transition. If policy initiatives are strongly focused on the ecological component of climate change, while at the same time substantial proportions of the European population have the impression that their primary concerns are not heard by by national or European governments, this might lead to a more muted level of support for climate action.
It also indicates that insufficient attention for social justice in climate policy risks to be exploited by political forces trying to slow down effective climate action. Presenting climate change as solely or mainly a concern of higher class or higher educated groups, they can mobilize those citizens who are primarily concerned with their basic economic needs.
Strong call for government action
When asked who is responsible for tackling climate change, the majority of Europeans look towards three actors: their national government, businesses and industry, and the European Union (Table 3). The option of taking individual action personally against climate change is clearly less prioritized.
| Who is responsible for tackling climate change? | |
|---|---|
| Table 3: Percentage of Europeans selecting the specific actor as responsible for tackling climate change. | |
| Actor | Percentage |
| National governments | 63.4% |
| Business / Industry | 55.4% |
| European Union | 54.4% |
| Regional / Local Authorities | 38.1% |
| You personally | 37.1% |
| Environmental Groups | 27.3% |
| All / None / DK / Other | 0.7% |
| Source: Eurobarometer 95.1, survey-period March 2021 - April 2021. Question: "In your opinion, who within the EU is responsible for tackling climate change?" (multiple answers possible). | |
Of those three actors, the survey only asked respondents whether the national government and the European Union are doing enough to tackle climate change. Europeans’ judgment is very clear: three in four say that their government is not doing enough against climate change (Figure 3).
This proportion is overall very similar across age groups, with a slightly higher percentage for younger Europeans. Whereas youth protests and school strikes for climate might give the impression that demands for government action on climate change are strongly concentrated among the youngest groups of Europeans, the survey shows that this is not the case. These forms of action may be more popular or more easily available to younger Europeans, but the demand for government action is comparable among older age groups.
Figure 3: Respondents judgement how much their national government is doing to tackle climate change.
Country by country differences seem slightly more relevant. Finland (34,3%) is the only country where the share of citizens saying that their government is not enough is below 50% (Figure 4). Whereas for Austria (53,8%) and Denmark (55,6%) slightly more than a majority of citizens reports dissatisfaction with government action, the numbers are over 80% in Croatia (88,7%), Portugal (85,1%) and Italy (83,8%).
Figure 4: Percentage by country that indicate that their national government is not doing enough to tackle climate change.
Support for (dis)investment
When it comes to policies for tackling climate change, we see very strong support among the European population to prioritize or even shift public investment towards sources of clean energy. In general 80,1% of Europeans agree with the statement that “more public financial support should be given to the transition to clean energies even if it means subsidies to fossil fuels should be reduced”.
The survey also discusses the EU economic recovery plan. The EU Member States have agreed on a €750 billion economic recovery plan, including both grants (€390bn) and loans (€360bn), to address the damage caused by the coronavirus pandemic. When presented with the choice of how this money should be mainly invested – either in the traditional fossil-fuelled economy or in the new green economy – 75,0% of Europeans chose the later.
A surprisingly strong majority of Europeans is decidedly forward-looking in evaluating the investment costs associated with shifting to a more green economy. Three in four Europeans (73,5%) agree with the statement that “the costs of the damages due to climate change are much higher than the costs of the investments needed for a green transition”.
Individual behaviour is not the right focus
In public and policy discussions on tackling climate change, there is a strong focus on (changing) individual behavior, namely on consumption and the use of services. For instance consuming less meat, choosing different modes of transport, isolating your own home, etc. In the survey Europeans were also polled on their individual behavior, and asked if they had personally “taken any action to fight climate change over the past six months”.
A majority (63,8%) of Europeans responds positively, but this average belies substantial variation, both in the socioeconomic background of the person and the type of action taken. To illustrate this, Figure 5 shows how chance of having taken such an individual action in the last six months is heavily dependent on your socioeconomic position and (expected) personal financial situation.
Figure 5: Taking individual action against climate change, by social class and COVID impact on income
Of the Europeans that situate themselves in the the upper and higher middle class and that indicate that they don’t have, and don’t expect to experience an impact of the COVID-19 crisis on their personal income, 75,7% has taken some form of personal action against climate change. On the other end, working class Europeans that have not yet felt an impact of COVID19 on their income, but fear to do so in the future, a substantially smaller proportion (56,4%) has taken such action. It shows how, regardless of your opinion on the climate change issue, individual actions are severely constraint by one’s socioeconomic situation and prospects.
This pattern is even more defined when we look at the type of climate-related individual behaviors Europeans have undertaken (Table 4 and Table 5). Very few individual climate change-related (consumption) behaviors are relatively widespread. In fact, only reducing and separating waste and using less disposable items is something a majority of Europeans do. Buying an electric car, by contrast, is a choice that only 2,2% of Europeans (can) make, despite the fact that it receives wide attention as a solution in climate debates, and is even fiscally incentived by some member states (f.e. Belgium).
| Only a few types of individual action on climate change see widespread use | |
|---|---|
| Table 4: Percentage of Belgians selecting the specific issue as the most serious problem facing the world, in total and by age group. | |
| Personal action taken | Percentage |
| Reduce And Separate Waste | 73.5% |
| Use Less Disposable Items | 62.7% |
| Energy Eff Hh Appliances | 48.2% |
| Alternatives To Car Use | 31.5% |
| Buy & Eat More Organic Food | 30.5% |
| Buy & Eat Less Meat | 29.2% |
| Insulated Home Better | 21.9% |
| Food Carbon Footprint Considered | 18.3% |
| Energy Saving Equipment Home | 11.2% |
| Travel Carbon Footprint Considered | 10.8% |
| Switched Energy Supplier | 9.9% |
| Low Fuel Consumption Car | 9.7% |
| Installed Solar Panels Home | 8.7% |
| Bought Low-Energy Home | 3.9% |
| Electric Car | 2.2% |
| None / Other / DK | 1.3% |
| Source: Eurobarometer 95.1 • Survey-period March 2021 - April 2021 • Question: "Which of the following do you consider to be the single most serious problem facing the world as a whole?" | |
Zooming in on these individual, consumption-based behaviors, an extreme social class gradient becomes immediately apparent (Table 5), even for “common” behaviors such as sorting waste or using less disposable items show strong differences. Very costly consumption-based behavioral changes, such as buying an electric car or a low-energy home are understandably even less common in the lower social classes.
These results should caution policy makers and other actors that focusing on individual, consumption-based behavior is a severely limited way of tackling climate change. Such behaviour proves to be not only relatively uncommon, but also socioeconomically very unequal. Policies that encourage climate-friendly consumption and behavior come with the perennial risk of upwards redistribution, as those better placed to adapt their choices –e.g. upper class Europeans – will be financially rewarded. Therefore, any policy instrument that focuses on changing individual, consumption-based behavior demands a substantial redistribution of public funds to economically weaker groups. Also, not compensating for such inequalities risks to damage support for climate change action among those groups.
Given such inequalities, concerns, and required additional resources to make a green transition a socioeconomically just transition, it is likely better to avoid a strong focus on individual, consumption-based action when designing policies to tackle climate change. As described above, there is clear and strong support for (more structural) government action and collective measures such as shifting and (dis)investing public resources.
| Individual actions on climate change are strongly social class-dependent | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Table 5: Percentage of Belgians selecting the specific issue as the most serious problem facing the world, in total and by age group. | ||||
| Personal action taken | Higher and upper middle class | Middle class | Lower middle class | Working class |
| Reduce And Separate Waste | 80.6% | 74.8% | 72.5% | 66.4% |
| Use Less Disposable Items | 70.3% | 63.9% | 61.4% | 56.1% |
| Energy Eff Hh Appliances | 54.1% | 50.2% | 49.6% | 38.9% |
| Buy & Eat More Organic Food | 43.9% | 32.6% | 25.6% | 20.7% |
| Buy & Eat Less Meat | 42.5% | 30.2% | 26.9% | 20.7% |
| Alternatives To Car Use | 39.3% | 32.7% | 30.3% | 24.2% |
| Insulated Home Better | 28.9% | 23.6% | 19.6% | 15.9% |
| Food Carbon Footprint Considered | 28.6% | 19.0% | 16.8% | 11.5% |
| Travel Carbon Footprint Considered | 18.6% | 11.2% | 9.4% | 5.8% |
| Energy Saving Equipment Home | 18.4% | 12.1% | 9.1% | 6.7% |
| Installed Solar Panels Home | 15.9% | 9.4% | 6.2% | 4.8% |
| Low Fuel Consumption Car | 15.6% | 10.5% | 8.1% | 5.2% |
| Switched Energy Supplier | 15.3% | 10.7% | 8.9% | 5.8% |
| Bought Low-Energy Home | 7.4% | 4.4% | 2.4% | 1.9% |
| Electric Car | 5.7% | 2.1% | 1.2% | 1.1% |
| None / Other / DK | 0.5% | 1.0% | 1.4% | 2.3% |
| Source: Eurobarometer 95.1 • Survey-period March 2021 - April 2021 • Question: "Which of the following do you consider to be the single most serious problem facing the world as a whole?" | ||||
Climate change-attitudes in Belgium
A quarter of Belgians consider climate change the single most serious problem facing the world (Table 6). This percentage is higher than the European average of 17,5%.
If we differentiate this by age group, we see a declining age gradient in this proportion, from 28.7% among 15 to 24 year old, to 24.5% among Belgians aged 55-plus. While there is an age difference in the priority attached to the climate change issue, there is no clear “generational divide” . Similar to other groups, older respondents rank climate change as the most pressing world problem.
This is also the case for the second question, where respondents rate the degree in which climate change is a problem. 15 to 24 year olds give a rating of 7.7 out of 10 (“an extremely serious problem”), compared to the Belgian average of 8.0 and 8.2 for 55-plus.
| Belgians consider climate change the most serious world problem, regardless of age | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Table 6: Percentage of Belgians selecting the specific issue as the most serious problem facing the world, in total and by age group. | |||||
| World issue | Total | 15-24 | 25-39 | 40-54 | 55-98 |
| Climate change | 25.5% | 28.7% | 25.5% | 25.8% | 24.5% |
| Poverty, hunger and lack of drinking water | 16.6% | 22.8% | 18.5% | 12.0% | 16.6% |
| The increasing global population | 12.1% | 5.7% | 8.3% | 13.4% | 16.0% |
| Deterioration of democracy and rule of law | 12.1% | 7.8% | 18.0% | 11.3% | 8.9% |
| Deterioration of nature | 8.1% | 5.9% | 9.1% | 10.0% | 6.2% |
| The economic situation | 7.8% | 16.7% | 8.2% | 6.7% | 6.1% |
| Spread of infectious diseases | 7.6% | 3.0% | 6.4% | 8.5% | 9.1% |
| Armed conflicts | 3.5% | 0.0% | 2.7% | 3.4% | 5.2% |
| International terrorism | 3.3% | 3.0% | 0.0% | 5.9% | 4.3% |
| Health problems due to pollution | 2.3% | 4.5% | 3.0% | 1.8% | 1.6% |
| Proliferation of nuclear weapons | 1.2% | 2.0% | 0.5% | 1.3% | 1.4% |
| Source: Eurobarometer 95.1 • Survey-period March 2021 - April 2021 • Question: "Which of the following do you consider to be the single most serious problem facing the world as a whole?" | |||||
Similarly, there is strong support for government action in Belgium over all age groups. On average 82% of Belgians state that the national government is not doing enough, this number is slightly lower for 15 to 24 year olds (80,0%), rising to 86,0% and 81,4% among 25-39 and 40-54 year olds, and it is 79,4% for those over 55. As noted earlier: not only the youngsters protesting and striking for the climate expect governments to tackle climate change.
Figure 6: Respondents judgement in each country how much their national government is doing to tackle climate change.
Figure 7: Percentage of respondents in each country indicating how (un)important it is that the government sets ambitious targets to increase renewable energy use.
Differences over regions in Belgium are negligible Belgians evaluate whether or not the national government does enough against climate change (6). We see also only limited regional variation when it comes to the need to set ambitious targets to increase the use of renewable energy by 2030, with the region of Brussel somewhat above, and Wallonia somewhat below the Belgian average of respondents considering this “very important” (Figure 7). In any case, 92% of Belgians, across all regions, consider this “very” or “fairly important” as government strategy. This runs counter to the observation that Belgium governments are relatively lagging in setting such targets.
Figure 8: Percentage of respondents in each country (dis)agreeing with a shift of public financial support >towards clean energies.
A similar, nearly unanimous (90%) proportion of Belgians across all regions supports disinvestment from fossil-fuels, i.e. agrees with the statement that more public financial support should be given to the transition to clean energies even if it means subsidies to fossil fuels should be reduced (Figure 8). Finally, a regionally highly similar strong majority of Belgians (83%) is in agreement that the costs of the damages due to climate change are much higher than the costs of the investments needed for a green transition (Figure 9).
Figure 9: Percentage of respondents in each country (dis)agreeing that climate change costs outweigh green transition investments costs.
Survey methodology
Between the 15th March and 14th April 2021, Kantar carried out wave 95.1 of the EUROBAROMETER survey, at the request of the European Commission, Directorate-General for Communication, “Media monitoring and Eurobarometer” Unit. Wave 95.1 covers the population of the respective nationalities of the European Union Member States, resident in each of the 27 Member States and aged 15 years and over.
Citation
For attribution, please cite this work as
Hermans, Maarten (2021) Europeans’ attitudes towards climate change. Minerva Paper 2021/07. Brussel: Denktank Minerva.