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CLIMATE CHANGE: Publics in North and South Want Action

Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON, Sep 24 2007 (IPS) - Amid a series of international conferences on climate change this week, the BBC has released a 21-nation survey in which two out of three respondents said they believed "major steps starting very soon" need to be taken to combat global warming.

The survey, which included virtually all of the world&#39s biggest emitters of greenhouse gases, including the United States, China, and India, also found that an average of eight in 10 respondents said they accept that "human activity, including industry and transportation, is a significant cause of climate change."

And nearly three in four respondents said they believe developing countries, which have historically contributed relatively little to build-up in greenhouse emissions that scientists say are warming the Earth&#39s atmosphere, should nonetheless be required to limit their future emissions, preferably in exchange for energy-saving aid and technology from wealthy nations.

"The public in developing as well as developed countries agree that action on climate change is necessary," said Steven Kull, director of the Programme on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) at the University of Maryland which, along with GlobeScan, conducted the survey.

Indeed, 90 percent of respondents in China, which, according to International Energy Agency (IEA), is expected to surpass the U.S. as the world&#39s biggest greenhouse emitter by 2009, said they supported such a quid pro quo.

Seven out of ten Chinese also favoured taking "major steps" to fight warming soon. That was 11 points more than the percentage of U.S. respondents who favoured "major steps."

The poll, which surveyed the views of 22,000 respondents between late May and late July, was released as the leaders of some 80 national governments wound up an all-day meeting Monday at U.N. headquarters in New York convened by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to consider how the international community could best follow up the 1997 Kyoto Protocol to reduce global emissions when it expires in 2012.

U.S. President George W. Bush, who repudiated Bill Clinton&#39s signature on the Kyoto pact shortly after coming to office in 2001, stayed away from the day&#39s proceedings but was scheduled to take part in a small working dinner Monday evening hosted by Ban of leaders of key governments to discuss the issue.

Bush, who still opposes binding limits on greenhouse emissions as required under Kyoto, will host his own two-day meeting on climate change later this week with representatives of 16 countries, including the major European economies, Japan, China, India, Indonesia, Brazil and Mexico that together account for about 90 percent of global emissions, to discuss "aspirational" goals – presumably voluntary efforts – by national governments to reduce emissions over the coming years and decades.

Bush, who as president appears to have gradually accepted the reality of global warming and its human causes, has nonetheless rejected Kyoto on the grounds that the emission reductions it requires would exact too high a price on the U.S. economy. He also has objected to the fact that the Protocol applied only to industrialised countries and not to developing countries, including rapidly growing emitters, especially China and India.

The latter group of countries has long argued that they are not nearly as responsible for the build-up of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere since the Industrial Revolution as the industrialised nations. In addition, they note that their emissions remain far lower on a per capita basis than those of industrialised countries, particularly the U.S. and Australia, the only two developed countries to have rejected Kyoto.

It is in that context that the survey&#39s results, which covered respondents from 10 developed countries – Canada, the U.S., Britain, France, Italy, Russia, Spain, Germany, Australia and South Korea – and 11 developing countries – Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Egypt, Turkey, Kenya, Nigeria, India, Indonesia, Philippines, and China – are especially striking.

In 18 of the 21 countries, including nine of the 11 developing countries, pluralities or majorities of respondents agreed that "less wealthy countries with substantial and growing emissions should limit climate change gas emissions along with wealthy countries" as opposed to their "not being expected" to do so.

"It speaks to us as pollsters that this problem is widely owned, and many of these countries, particularly China, see themselves as an emerging world power that should be active in these areas," GlobeScan President Doug Miller told IPS. "It certainly suggests that this week&#39s negotiations will take place in a very supportive public environment in both wealthy and less wealthy countries."

The view that developing countries needed to curb their emissions was particularly favoured by the Latin American and Chinese respondents (nearly 70 percent on average). The three countries in which pluralities said they poorer countries should not be expected to do so were Egypt, Nigeria, and Italy.

Asked whether they supported or opposed a deal whereby wealthy countries agreed to provide less wealthy countries with financial assistance and energy-saving technology in exchange for limiting their greenhouse emissions, respondents were particularly enthusiastic in China (90 percent); Australia (84 percent); the European countries (an average of about 78 percent); Indonesia, Egypt, and Kenya (77 percent); and Brazil (73 percent).

By contrast, the developed country least supportive of such a deal was the U.S. (70 percent). Among developed countries, U.S. respondents were also least likely to believe that human activity is a significant cause of climate change (71 percent) and, with the exception of Russia (43 percent) and Germany (50 percent), least likely to believe that "major steps very soon" were needed to reduce the impact of climate change (59 percent).

Among all countries, Indian respondents were least likely to believe that human activity as a significant cause of climate change, that "major steps very soon" were needed to reduce its impact, and that less wealthy countries should limit their emissions.

On the other hand, India was the only largely rural country in which the survey was national in scope, as opposed to most of the other developing countries, including China and Brazil, where the survey&#39s sample was drawn exclusively from urban-dwellers.