Date released: November 05, 2024
Public support for climate action remains high across Ireland
Check out the EPA Climate Opinion Maps to see where your County stands on Climate Action
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has today released updated 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 output from Wave 2 of the Climate Change in the Irish Mind study, undertaken in 2023 by the EPA and the Yale University Program on Climate Change Communication in support of the National Dialogue on Climate Action.
Speaking about the new climate change opinion maps, Dr Eimear Cotter, Director of the Office of Evidence & Assessment said:
“The interactive climate opinion maps make the EPA’s Climate Change in the Irish Mind data accessible to a wide audience across Ireland. These maps show nationwide acceptance of the scientific consensus on climate change, and strong support for most climate action policies, with minimal variation based on where people live, and that most climate attitudes were resilient in the face of cost-of-living increases. However, we also see that public understanding of the causes of climate change is limited and varies between counties. In some counties, less than half of the population understands that climate change is human caused, compared to about six in ten in other areas.”
While the overall picture of support for climate action is high and largely consistent across the country, there are slight regional variations in the level of support for some policies such as the banning of peat, coal, and oil for home heating. Support is highest in urban areas, and weakest in the North-West and border regions. A similar pattern is evident for policies to increase taxes on cars that use petrol and diesel.
People tend to be worried about known region-specific risks from climate change. For instance, a higher percentage of people are worried about water shortages in Dublin and the Mid-East region than the rest of the country. However, water pollution remains a widespread worry for eight in ten people across all counties.
Speaking about the maps, Dr Tara Higgins, Programme Manager, EPA Evidence Programme said:
“It is encouraging to see that most people across all parts of Ireland believe we have a collective responsibility to act on climate change. It will be important to understand and address people’s concerns about some climate action policies – such as moving away from fossil fuelled transport and home heating. These latest climate opinion maps are a valuable resource for climate policy decision-makers, researchers, the media, non-governmental organizations, and students. We encourage people to use these maps to explore opinions on climate change and worries about climate risks in their own county and region.”
ENDS
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 an ongoing study of the Irish population’s beliefs, attitudes, policy preferences, and behaviours regarding climate change. The project aims to develop a better understanding of the Irish population by conducting an ongoing study of climate change beliefs, risk perceptions, policy preferences, and behaviours of the Irish public towards climate change. Wave 1 of the project revealed near nationwide agreement on many climate change attitudes and strong majority support for climate action. Wave 2 of the project demonstrated that most climate attitudes were resilient in the face of cost-of-living increases. 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.
‘Climate Change in the Irish Mind’ is a nationally representative survey. It 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.
The data in the maps are based on a combined Wave 1 and Wave 2 statistical model of 5,312 residents of the Republic of Ireland, aged 18 and older and has strong national representativeness. The survey was conducted in two waves, from 24 May to 29 July 2021 and August to October 2023. The survey was carried out in the field by IPSOS-B&A. All questionnaires were administered by call agents using computer-assisted telephone interviewing (CATI) software taking 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. At Wave 1, 84,961 numbers were dialled, and 4,030 interviews were completed. At Wave 2 at wave 1, 22,862 numbers were called with 1,330 interviews completed. Response rates were 5% and 6% at each wave respectively. 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.
Care should be taken in interpreting weak regional variations in climate change attitudes, policy preferences, and behaviours. The maps make any differences look visually distinct, but they are typically within a few percent of the average The margin of error is 1.5% for the climate maps and typically 3% for findings in the main reports. Details of survey methodologies are provided in the main Climate Change in the Irish Mind reports from (2021) and (2023)
The survey is designed to be longitudinal with the next wave improving the accuracy of the opinion maps with new data. This allows 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 study are available on the Climate Change in the Irish Mind homepage.
