Poll finds Europeans support climate action - until it affects their lifestyle

The Guardian published a story a couple of days ago reporting the results of a YouGov survey of people in seven European countries. The respondents were asked about their support for state-led climate action and individual initiatives, and the results showed the greatest level of support for measures that wouldn’t directly affect an individual’s lifestyle, but that the more a measure would require a change in lifestyle the less support there was for it.

Here’s a summary of the responses:

We’ll look more at public attitudes to climate change and the action required to reduce greenhouse gas emissions at a later date, but the survey raises some interesting points. As a species, we have kicked the can down the road for so long on climate change that some level of lifestyle change is inevitable. This survey shows that the greater the change, the more resistance there is likely to be, particularly in wealthy Western countries.