A total of 34% of the Irish population strongly thinks that climate change caused by human activity is a “real and immediate threat”, according to a new report by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
The Climate Change’s Four Irelands report published today (Tuesday, July 30), identifies four different audiences of people in Ireland who share a similar set of beliefs, attitudes, and behaviours relating to climate change.
The different audiences identified strongly differ on their knowledge, levels of worry and willingness to take personal action on climate change, which is consistent with a previous assessment published in 2022, the EPA said.
The four different audiences identified in the latest audience segmentation analysis of the Irish population are as follows:
- The alarmed: 34% of the Irish population strongly think that climate change caused by human activity is a real and immediate threat;
- The concerned: 48% of the Irish population are convinced that climate change is a serious issue, but are less worried than the ‘alarmed’ and view it as a less immediate threat;
- The cautious: 14% of the Irish population think climate change is happening, but are less sure of the causes and are less likely than the ‘alarmed’ or ‘concerned’ to think it will affect them personally;
- The doubtful: 4% of the Irish population are not worried about climate change, and do not perceive it as a threat.
This work was undertaken by the EPA and the Yale University Programme on Climate Change Communication. The report provides an update on the EPA’s ongoing Climate Change in the Irish Mind project.
Climate change
The report shows that a majority within each audience agrees that climate change is happening. While awareness of climate change is very high, there are strong differences in what the audiences believe is causing it, the EPA said.
Climate change is mostly caused by human activities, however, a significant minority of the ‘alarmed’ and ‘concerned’ audiences incorrectly believe that climate change is caused equally by human and natural action.
Agriculture is the single largest contributor to overall emissions in Ireland at 37.8%. Transport and energy industries are the next largest contributors at 21.4% and 14.3% respectively, EPA data show.
Only 36% of the ‘alarmed’ audience correctly identified agriculture as Ireland’s largest source of the pollution that causes climate change, while 31% think energy industries are the largest emitter, the report found.
In total, 94% of this audience support increasing forests in their own localities to offset greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from agriculture, while 74% support the banning of peat, coal, and oil for home heating purposes.
Survey
Welcoming the report, the director of the EPA’s Office of Evidence and Assessment, Dr. Eimear Cotter said: “The small percentage in the ‘doubtful’ category shows that climate scepticism is rare in Ireland.
“People from cities, towns, villages and rural areas hold diverse views on climate change, but the study does not show a strong urban-rural divide.”
The data in this report are based on a representative survey of 1,330 residents of the Republic of Ireland, aged 18 and older. The survey was fielded by Behaviour & Attitudes between August 30 and October 6, 2023.
All questionnaires were administered by call agents using computer-assisted telephone interviewing software. Survey respondents were recruited using a random digit dial sample of live Irish telephone numbers.
Gender, age, work status, and region quotas were used to ensure sample representativeness.