In the survey, about 2,000 people were surveyed in six countries, reported polling agency Novatris. The agency also reported the views were extrapolated from a quota-based selection of national populations. Fifty-four percent of French respondents said that global warming was one of the top two challenges facing the planet that personally affects them, followed by 40 percent of respondents in Britain, Germany and Italy. Of the Americans surveyed, 30 percent agreed.
"These results show the different stages of engagement about global warming on each side of the Atlantic," said Nick Pidgeon, a professor of psychology who specializes in attitudes toward climate change at Cardiff University in Wales. "The debate in Europe is about what action needs to be taken, while many in the U.S. still debate whether climate change is happening."
Pidgeon said the results served as evidence that the attitudes of the people were having an significant impact on the policies enacted by politicians. He noted that, in Europe, the problem of climate change is often brought up by politicians -- sometimes even by oil companies -- while some people in the United States remain skeptical, especially when the subject was put up against other global issues.
In the poll, climate change was in competition with nine other global concerns, such as terrorism, religious fanaticism, viruses, war and famine. Terrorism was named the primary concern in the United States, with 49 percent of respondents citing it as one of the two challenges that personally affects them, followed by global warming, and religious fanaticism ranked third with 29 percent.
"It is clear that it will take more than a film by Al Gore for the United States to take climate change as seriously as Europe," said Patrick Van Bloeme, general manager of Novatris. "Opinion leaders and politicians are pushing climate change in Europe, while the U.S. rejected the Kyoto protocol."
The news comes on the heels of predictions by the British Meteorological Office that say there is a 60 percent chance that 2007 will be the hottest year on record. Average temperatures are expected to be 0.94 degrees Fahrenheit higher than the long-term average of 1961-1990: 57.2 degrees Fahrenheit. As it stands, 2006 is set to go on record as the sixth warmest year in recorded history, and the past decade was comprised of the10 warmest years since 1850, the agency added.
In addition to the drastic environmental consequences of global warming, the financial ramifications of ignoring climate change were illustrated by a 700-page report by Nicolas Stern, senior economist for the British Treasury. According to Stern, countries could expect to spend between 5 and 20 percent of their gross national product annually to deal with the consequences of ignored climate change, including massive droughts and millions of subsequent refugees.
###