Reducing carbon emissions and tackling climate change

The first release of the 2021-2022 EIB Climate Survey explores people’s views on climate change in a rapidly changing world. The results from this release focus on how people perceive climate change and the actions they expect their country to take to combat it. 

Explore the results from this release of the Climate Survey.

• In all countries surveyed, climate change is seen as the biggest challenge for humanity in the 21^st century.
• The majority of EU citizens (58%) and Britons (55%) believe that their country will fail to drastically reduce its carbon emissions, as pledged in the Paris Agreement.
• 75% of EU citizens, 69% of Britons and 59% of Americans believe they are more concerned about the climate emergency than their governments.
• The majority of EU citizens (51%) say government inactivity is why the climate crisis is so difficult to solve.
• 70% of EU citizens and 73% of Britons are in favour of strict government measures imposing changes on people’s behaviour to fight climate change.

Only Chinese respondents (93%) and a slight majority of Americans (51%) believe their country will meet its reduced carbon emission commitments by 2050, as pledged in the Paris Agreement. Only a minority of EU citizens (42%) and Britons (45%) believe that their country will succeed in drastically reducing its carbon emissions.

Meanwhile, the majority of citizens in the European Union, the United Kingdom, the United States and China believe climate change and its consequences are the biggest challenge for humanity in the 21^st century.

This figure is highest amongst Chinese respondents, with 93% agreeing with this statement, followed by EU citizens (81%), the British (74%) and Americans (59%). In the European Union, United Kingdom and United States, younger people are more convinced of the severity of the climate crisis than older generations.

EU citizens (75%) and Britons (69%) believe that they are more concerned about the climate emergency than their governments. Americans agree with this statement, but to a lesser extent (59%). 51% of EU citizens, 49% of Britons and 41% of Americans say it is difficult to solve the climate crisis because their governments are not active enough.

In contrast, Chinese respondents (69%) believe that their government is more concerned than citizens themselves about the climate emergency. 41% say the main reason why it is difficult to solve the climate crisis is that people do not want to change their behaviour.

Around the world, people are in favour of stricter measures that impose changes on people’s behaviour to tackle the climate crisis: 91% of Chinese respondents, 73% of Britons, 70% of EU citizens and 60% of Americans would support these measures. 

When asked about the source of energy their country should rely on to fight global warming, citizens from all regions emphasise using renewable energies. While EU citizens (63%), Britons (59%) and Chinese (60%) are predominantly in favour of renewable energies, the same is true of only 50% of Americans.

Support for natural gas as a transition source of energy is low, but relative to other sources there is more support among Americans (18% in favour of natural gas) than other regions (13% are in favour in China, 9% in the United Kingdom and 6% in the European Union). Nuclear energy is a more popular option for Britons (15%) and EU citizens (12%) than for Americans (9%) and Chinese respondents (5%).

Finally, for many respondents the most sustainable energy source for addressing the climate crisis is the one we don’t use: 22% of Chinese respondents, 17% of Americans and EU citizens, and 16% of Britons say energy savings should be the priority.