Date released: January 19, 2023
19th January 2023: The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has today released new interactive maps of Ireland that show national, regional, and county level data about people’s climate change beliefs, attitudes, policy preferences and behaviours. This is the third key output of the Climate Change in the Irish Mind study, undertaken by the EPA and the Yale University Program on Climate Change Communication in support of the National Dialogue on Climate Action. The maps allow visual exploration of data from the Climate Change in the Irish Mind survey.
Speaking about the climate change opinion maps, Dr Eimear Cotter, Director of the Office of Evidence & Assessment said:
“The new interactive climate opinion maps bring the data from the EPA’s Climate Change in the Irish Mind study to life. At a national level the maps show a consistent picture across the country of high levels of understanding about climate change and support for climate action with little variation depending on where people live. We see a picture of attitudes, behaviours, and policy preferences to climate change across counties and regions that are closely aligned with high levels of awareness and worry about climate change in each area. For example, almost nine in ten adults in all regions believe Ireland has a responsibility to act on climate change and almost eight in ten people in all counties believe acting on climate change will improve our quality of life.”
While the evidence is largely consistent across the country, there are minor regional variations in the level of concern about climate risks with, for example, slightly more people worried about water shortages in Dublin and the Mid-East region. In addition, somewhat more people are worried about severe storms in the West, Mid-West, and South-West regions. These spatial variations align with known environmental risks in these areas.
Speaking about the data Dr Conor Quinlan, EPA Senior Manager, Climate Services said:
“These maps allow the public to examine at the national, regional and county level, in an easy to use format, information on climate change and desire for climate action and we encourage people to go online to see what their county thinks. The findings of this, and the other Climate Change in the Irish Mind outputs, will be used to inform and support national communications on climate change. It will also be used by climate policy and decision makers, the research community, media, and the non-governmental sector. With future iterations of the Climate change in the Irish Mind survey, the maps will subsequently be updated”.
Further information: Emily Williamson, EPA Media Relations Office 053-9170770 (24 hours) or media@epa.ie
Notes to Editor
The ‘Climate Change in the Irish Mind’ project is a baseline study of the Irish population’s beliefs, attitudes, policy preferences, and behaviours regarding climate change.
This work was undertaken by the EPA and our academic partner Yale Program on Climate Change Communications (YPCCC) in support of the National Dialogue on Climate Action.
The approach to the project is based on the established methodology of the “Climate Change in the American Mind” survey conducted by the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication and the George Mason University Centre for Climate Change Communication, which was tailored to meet Ireland’s particular socio/economic context.
This is the first nationally representative survey of its kind in Ireland.
The data in this report are based on a representative survey of 4,000 residents of the Republic of Ireland, aged 18 and older. The survey was conducted 24 May to 29 July 2021. All questionnaires were administered by call agents using computer-assisted telephone interviewing (CATI) software. The survey took, on average, 25 minutes to complete.
Survey respondents were recruited using a random digit dial sample of live Irish telephone numbers. About 80 per cent of survey respondents were reached through mobile phone numbers and 20 per cent through landline phone numbers. A total of 84,961 numbers were dialled and 4,030 interviews were completed (including 30 pilot interviews to test survey wording and timing), for a response rate of 5 per cent. Gender, age, work status, and region quotas were used to ensure sample representativeness. Key demographic variables were also weighted, post survey, to match Central Statistics Office norms.
Minor regional variations in climate change attitudes, policy preferences, and behaviours are typically within or close to the margin of error of the study. Details of survey methodology is provided in the Climate Change in the Irish Mind report (2021).
The survey was carried out in the field by Behaviour & Attitudes.
The survey is designed to be longitudinal with fieldwork for the next wave of the CCIM study planned for 2023. The maps will be updated with this data when available. This will allow social and political changes in climate change attitudes to be explored in a timely and useful manner.
Full details of the Climate Change in the Irish Mind reporting are available here:
CCIM report 1: Climate Change in the Irish Mind, accompanying Infographic
CCIM report 2: Climate Change’s Four Irelands, accompanying Infographic
CCIM report 3: Climate opinion maps web page
