A new survey has shown that concerns about climate change shrank across the world last year, with fewer than half of those questioned in a new survey believing it posed a “very serious threat” to their countries over the next 20 years.
The study undertaken on 228 countries and territories by the Institute for Economics and Peace found that 750 million people globally are now affected by undernourishment and that climate change, rising inflation and Russia’s war in Ukraine will all exacerbate food insecurity in the future.
The study also showed that more than 1.4 billion people in 83 countries face extreme “water stress,” defined as more than 20% of the population not having access to clean drinking water.
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Recall that a 2019 survey by Gallup World Risk Poll showed that only 20% of people in China, the world’s biggest polluter, said they believed that climate change was a very serious threat, down 3 percentage points from the last
The survey, which was based on more than 125,000 interviews in 121 countries, shows that the figure fell by 1.5 percentage points to 48.7% in 2021 globally. The Covid-19 pandemic and concerns about more immediate issues such as health and livelihoods may partly explain the drop, according to the survey’s authors.
Findings from the latest survey showed that regions facing the highest ecological threats are on average the least concerned about climate change, with only 27.4% of those in the Middle East and North Africa and 39.1% of those in south Asia concerned about the risks.
But despite the shrinking concern, the ecological bill of climate change is growing globally. Several European countries are expected to experience critical clean water shortages by 2040, including Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, and Portugal, the report found, while most of sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and North Africa will be affected.
The findings of the survey come ahead of the next round of Cop27 global climate talks which is scheduled to hold in Egypt in November.
Founder of the Sydney-based institute, Steve Killelea, said that negotiators at Cop27 need to consider the ways in which climate change is exacerbating the impacts of ecological threats … and how the international community can mitigate them.
Story was adapted from the Guardian.
