The second in an annual five-year survey series has highlighted the difference between the Australian public and scientists of the urgency of climate action.
Repeated and increasingly frustrated calls from Australian climate experts are failing to activate the Australian population with the urgency communicated by scientists in Australia and globally.
While most Australians accepted climate change was happening, only a minority thought it was an extremely serious problem.
Survey results showed 71% of Australians reported feeling either “fairly” or “very” concerned about the effects of climate change though this does not translate into demands for urgent action now – as the world’s scientists are demanding.
These results are gathered from the second annual Griffith University’s Climate Action Survey – one of the most ambitious climate change surveys conducted in Australia in terms of sample size, methodological rigour, multidisciplinary input and breadth of coverage – in September-December 2022.
The annual survey aimed to highlight what Australians think, feel and do about climate change and related environmental and climatic events, conditions and issues. Comparisons were also made with findings from the corresponding 2021 survey including longitudinal data from a sample of repeat respondents.
While overall Australians reported their support for climate action, including support for government policies, those with natural disaster experience expressed disproportionately high levels of concern and distress about climate change, were more likely to support government action to combat climate change, and were more likely to engage in pro environmental actions.
Exposure to the 2022 floods was a significant factor in prompting more urgency in calls for climate action.
Interestingly, the survey found that Australians relied on their own observations as much as they did commercial media and scientific experts, pointing to the value of personal stories that better communicated local impacts.
“The Climate Action Survey reveals much complexity and conflicting attitudes to climate action – in terms of personal responses and calls for government action. It also reveals points where Australian’s connect on climate changes and a host of possible interventions to assist policy and decision makers in supporting Australians to take climate action,” survey co-lead Associate Professor Kerrie Foxwell-Norton said.
“Obviously, Australia and its environments cannot wait for more people to experience climate-related disasters before increasing their sense of urgency for climate action.
“This survey, more than any other, charts ways to engage Australians and empower communities – underpinned by climate science.”
As was the case in the 2021 survey, overall, the picture to emerge from the 2022 survey is of a nation that is divided along age, education, party-political, and other demographic lines in its views of and responses to climate change.
The survey team also noted a majority motivated to take climate action of many types and a persistent small group reluctant to accept and act on the realities evident in everyday observation and increasingly revealed by climate science.
2022 Climate Action Survey key findings: