HKU POP SITE today releases latest survey findings of WorldPublicOpinion.org – on publics' opinion on handling climate changeBack

Press Release on July 30, 2009

Abstract

WouldPublicOpinion.org (or WPO) interviewed 18,578 people in 22 regions worldwide between April 4 and July 9, 2009. The survey finds that majorities in 15 think their government should put a higher priority on addressing climate change than it does now. This includes the largest greenhouse gas emitters: China (62% want more action), the US (52%), and Russia (56%). "Many government leaders express worry that their publics are not really ready to absorb the hardships that would come with addressing climate change," comments Steven Kull, director of WorldPublicOpinion.org, "but most people around the world appear to be impatient that their government is not doing enough to address the problem of climate change." Invited commentator from Hong Kong Christine Loh observes, "People are not ignorant. They do know climate change poses significant threats to the world, which is why the respondents to this survey believe their governments should give relevant policies a much higher priority." The margins of error of WPO surveys conducted around the world are controlled to the range of +/-3 to 4 percentage points.

Points to note:

* The Chinese website of "WorldPublicOpinion.org" is located at http://wpo.hkpop.hk and its English website is located at http://worldpublicopinion.org
* Since there are sampling errors in the survey, the figures cannot be too accurate. When quoting percentages, journalists should refrain from reporting decimal places.

Latest Figures

POP today releases on schedule via the "HKU POP SITE" (http://hkupop.pori.hk) and "World Opinion Platform" (http://wpo.hkpop.hk) the latest figures of WouldPublicOpinion.org, which reflect people's opinions on handling climate change. Herewith the contact information for the latest survey:

Date of survey	Overall sample size	Margin of error
Varies on 4/4-9/7/2009	18,578	Less than +/-4% in each region

Herewith the results of people in Greater China Region (GCR) and countries well-known to Hong Kong people. The theme is people's views on handling climate change, please refer to "World Opinion Platform": *

Date of survey	4/4-9/7/2009
Sample base	Ranges from 500 to 1,235
Q1. How high a priority does the government place on addressing climate change? Please answer on a scale of 0-10 with 0 meaning "not a priority at all" and 10 meaning a "very high priority"	Mean	Median	0-4 (%)	5 (%)	6-10 (%)	DK/NR (%)	Total (%)
Greater China Region average	5.35	6	30%	22%	42%	6%	100%
Hong Kong	4.67	5	39%	28%	29%	4%	100%
Macau	4.60	5	37%	22%	28%	13%	100%
Mainland	7.31	8	8%	13%	78%	2%	100%
Taiwan	4.80	5	37%	25%	34%	4%	100%
United States of America	3.84	4	61%	17%	21%	1%	100%
Britain	5.92	6	20%	21%	58%	1%	100%
France	5.42	5	27%	27%	44%	2%	100%
South Korea	4.61	5	46%	24%	30%	1%	100%
Germany	7.02	7	9%	13%	78%	0%	100%
World average	5.01	5	36%	18%	38%	9%	100%

Q2. Using the same scale, how high a priority do you think the government SHOULD place on addressing climate change?	Mean	Median	0-4 (%)	5 (%)	6-10 (%)	DK/NR (%)	Total (%)
Greater China Region average	7.64	8	5%	10%	78%	7%	100%
Hong Kong	7.19	7	6%	15%	76%	4%	100%
Macau	7.00	7	8%	14%	60%	18%	100%
Mainland	8.86	9	1%	3%	94%	2%	100%
Taiwan	7.52	8	5%	9%	82%	4%	100%
United States of America	4.71	5	42%	13%	44%	1%	100%
Britain	8.20	8	4%	6%	89%	1%	100%
France	8.03	8	3%	6%	89%	3%	100%
South Korea	7.42	8	6%	12%	82%	0%	100%
Germany	7.57	8	5%	12%	83%	0%	100%
World average	7.32	8	12%	9%	73%	7%	100%

Q3. What is your guess on how high a priority the average person in [country/region] thinks the government should place on addressing climate change?	Mean	Median	0-4 (%)	5 (%)	6-10 (%)	DK/NR (%)	Total (%)
Greater China Region average	6.51	7	14%	19%	59%	8%	100%
Hong Kong	6.55	7	10%	20%	62%	7%	100%
Macau	6.57	7	13%	17%	53%	17%	100%
Mainland	6.05	6	23%	23%	52%	2%	100%
Taiwan	6.88	7	10%	16%	67%	6%	100%
United States of America	3.71	3	67%	14%	18%	0%	100%
Britain	6.52	7	10%	23%	65%	3%	100%
France	6.77	7	9%	16%	66%	9%	100%
South Korea	4.98	5	36%	31%	32%	1%	100%
Germany	6.47	6	10%	24%	66%	0%	100%
World average	6.45	7	18%	16%	58%	9%	100%

*Except Hong Kong, Macau, Mainland and Taiwan, the other regions are those best known to Hong Kong people. According to the survey conducted by POP on May 5 to 7, 2009, the 10 regions best known to Hong Kong people are the United States, United Kingdom, Japan, France, Australia, Canada, Thailand, Singapore, South Korea and Germany. Among these regions, the United States, United Kingdom, France, South Korea and Germany participated in this current survey. For details of survey on people's best known regions, please refer to the press release on May 19, 2009 at the "HKU POP SITE". The figures for Greater China Region are calculated based on the survey results of Hong Kong, Macau, Mainland and Taiwan. Different from the calculation of WPO, the findings of these four regions are included in figures for world average.

Results of the latest survey showed that, publics in GCR generally thought their governments gave climate change a high priority. When asked to rate in a scale of 0-10, for 0 meaning "not a priority at all" and 10 meaning "very high priority", 42% gave a rating of 6-10 marks, and the overall mean was 5.35 marks. Using the same scale, 78% gave a rating of 6-10 marks while the overall mean was 7.64 marks, implying that the publics in GCR generally thought their government should give high priority to climate change. Last but not least, publics in GCR generally thought people in their regions thought the government should place high priority on addressing climate change, with 59% gave a rating of 6-10 marks and an overall mean of 6.51 marks.

Invited Commentary from Hong Kong

Invited commentator from Hong Kong Ms. Christine Loh, Chief Executive Officer of Civic Exchange (email address: [email protected]), analyzes the survey results as follows:

What is most interesting about this survey is that it accords with a number of other surveys about how the people around the world see climate change. Firstly, people are not ignorant. They do know climate change poses significant threats to the world, which is why the respondents to this survey believe their governments should give relevant policies a much higher priority. Even in war-torn Iraq, 39% of the respondents thought so. While this is not a majority, it is a significant portion of people in a country that is going through much more immediate crises on a daily basis. This is also evidence that ordinary people can multi-think in the sense that they are not one-dimensional. At any one time, they can consider a range of issues, and several of them are of equal priorities.

Secondly, there is a tendency to underestimate the how others feel about climate change. This may be because the subject is not yet one of conversation outside professional circles and thus ordinary citizens are unable to gauge how each other feel, unlike subjects like education or healthcare, where families and friends exchange views.

Thirdly, perhaps because of the above, governments around the world do not believe they can carry the general public and voters if they adopted more aggressive climate change policies. This and other surveys should give them confidence that the people are quite well-informed and they accept much more needs to be done. It is of course up to politicians and governments to propose policies. In any event, they should no longer assume climate issues are vote-losers, particularly if they can put forward a compelling sustainable development agenda alongside policies for climate mitigation and adaptation.

Fourthly, a sobering fact for Americans may be that more Chinese citizens want their government to give climate change a higher policy priority (62%) than Americans ask of their administration (52%). While China is now the largest greenhouse gas emitter in the world, the Americans are a close second with a much smaller population that has been heavy consumers of energy for a very long time. Indeed, the United States set the pace for a high energy consumption lifestyle.

Other Commentary

"Many government leaders express worry that their publics are not really ready to absorb the hardships that would come with addressing climate change," comments Steven Kull, director of WorldPublicOpinion.org, "but most people around the world appear to be impatient that their government is not doing enough to address the problem of climate change." (For details please go to the website of WPO at http://www.worldpublicopinion.org.)

Additional Information: About WPO

WorldPublicOpinion.org (WPO) was initiated and managed by the Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland, USA. At present WPO consists of research centers from over 20 countries or regions including Hong Kong, Macau, Mainland and Taiwan (together called Greater China Region).

Apart from conducting the Hong Kong part of WPO survey, the Public Opinion Programme (POP) at the University of Hong Kong is also responsible for designing and maintaining the Chinese homepage of the WPO at http://wpo.hkpop.hk, which can be accessed via the HKU POP Site at http://hkupop.pori.hk. Besides, POP is also responsible for coordinating the polls in the Greater China Region, and will follow the rhythm of the WorldPublicOpinion.org (WPO) to globally release the Chinese versions of WPO's press releases regularly. We welcome questions for follow-up purpose, please email them to us at [email protected].