Strong support for climate action ‘among urban and rural people’

People’s beliefs, attitudes, policy preferences and behaviours on climate change “are consistent across Ireland with no discernible difference between urban or rural dwellers”, according to interactive maps published by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

The maps allow visual exploration of national, regional, and county-level data on aspects of climate change and are the latest outcome from an in-depth survey of 4,000 adults. It is the latest output of the ongoing Climate Change in the Irish Mind (CCIM) study undertaken by the EPA with Yale University.

The maps show across Ireland people are in almost full agreement that climate change is happening and large proportions of the population are worried about it.

Almost nine in 10 adults in all regions believe “Ireland has a responsibility to act on climate change”. In addition, almost eight in 10 people in all counties believe acting on climate change will improve their quality of life.

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Those who live in counties that are more affected by environmental hazards, such as severe storms and water shortages, express slightly higher levels of concern about the impacts of climate change.

Dr Eimear Cotter, director of the EPA 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.”

Attitudes, behaviours, and policy preferences to climate change across counties and regions “are closely aligned with high levels of awareness and worry about climate change in each area”, she added.

While the evidence is largely consistent across the country, there were 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.

Variations

In addition, somewhat more people are worried about severe storms in the west, midwest, and southwest regions. “These spatial variations align with known environmental risks in these areas,” Dr Cotter said.

Dr Conor Quinlan, EPA senior manager in climate services, said the maps were in an easy-to-use format “and we encourage people to go online to see what their county thinks”.

The breakdown of data in the maps and the other CCIM output would be used to inform and support national communications on climate change, he confirmed.

It would also be used by climate policy and decision-makers; the research community, media, and the non-governmental sector, Dr Quinlan added. With future iterations of the CCIM survey, “the maps will subsequently be updated”.

This project with the Yale Program on Climate Change Communications is designed to support the Government’s national dialogue on climate action. The approach is based on the methodology of the groundbreaking Climate Change in the American Mind survey, which was tailored to meet Ireland’s particular socio/economic context.

Fieldwork for the next wave of the study is planned for later this year. 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, the EPA said. They can be accessed through epa.ie