Make it Green: New report on the role of public opinion in addressing climate change

The Infra4NextGen project has today published a new report featuring analysis of Make it Green items from the self-completion web first panel (CRONOS-3).

Topline Results: European Attitudes to Climate Change, Fairness, and Action covers climate change concern, the seriousness of different climate issues, and who should be responsible for mitigating its effects.

There is also analysis of data on prioritising environmental protection or economic growth and job creation, the perceived fairness of climate policies, climate activism, and willingness to pay.

The report—written by Wouter Poortinga (Cardiff University)—includes analysis of nationally representative data collected in 11 countries in 2024-25.

Panellists in Austria, Belgium, Czechia, Finland, France, Hungary, Iceland, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia, and the United Kingdom were asked to complete each wave online or, if that was not possible, using paper self-completion questionnaires.

Environment v economy

The report reveals that a majority of respondents in 11 countries support environmental protection over economic growth and job creation.

This is most pronounced in Portugal where almost four in five respondents (79.9%) prioritise protecting the environment compared to 14% of those favouring growth and jobs.

Support for preferring environmental protection is lowest in Poland (54%), but this is still a larger share than those who would prioritise economic growth and job creation (39.8%).

Climate policies

Respondents offered their opinions on three policies to help mitigate the effects of climate change: subsidising renewable energy, increasing taxes on fossil fuels, and banning the least energy efficient appliances.

When pooling responses from all 11 countries, the data shows relatively high levels of support for subsidising renewable energy.

A majority of respondents strongly or somewhat favour subsidies for renewable energy sources (65%) compared with only 12.1% who are against this policy measure.

Meanwhile, 54% are strongly or somewhat in favour of banning the least energy efficient electrical appliances (15.8% strongly or somewhat against) whilst 36.9% support increased taxes on fossil fuels (32.5% against).

Climate change beliefs and worry

An overwhelming majority of respondents across all 11 countries believe that climate change is happening and a majority think that their country is already feeling its effects.

The report states: "In every participating country, at least nine out of ten respondents agree that the climate is probably or definitely changing; with the highest found in Slovenia (95.9%), France (95.8%), Austria (95.8%), and Portugal (94.9%)."

This is not, however, necessarily leading to similarly high rates of those being very or extremely worried about climate change, with the highest reported in Portugal (59.3%), Austria (48.2%), Slovenia (46%), and Hungary (45.8%).

Responsibility for addressing climate change

In all 11 countries, respondents are most likely to think that business and industry has the most responsibility for addressing climate change, followed by government and then individuals.

Respondents were asked to state the level of responsibility using an 11-point scale ranging from 0 (not at all responsible) to 10 (entirely responsible).

"Business and industry consistently attracted the highest levels of assigned responsibility, with mean scores peaking in Portugal (8.9) and France (8.7)."

Mean scores for government responsibility are highest in Portugal (8.2) and France (8.1), and lowest in Czechia (5.9).

Most other countries clustered between 7.0 and 7.8, including the United Kingdom (7.8), Finland (7.3), and Austria (7.2).

When it comes to personal responsibility, the lowest scores were found in Czechia (4.8) and Iceland (5.9), with the highest levels again in Portugal (8.0) and France (7.4).

Collective efficacy

Across the 11 countries, respondents were asked whether they agreed with the statement: "There is no point in doing what I can for the environment unless others do the same."

The highest level of disagreement with the statement was observed in Finland (70.4%) and Hungary (69.6%), followed by Portugal (67.4%) and Slovenia (65.5%).

"Countries such as Austria (48.3%), Belgium (47.3%), United Kingdom (51.3%), France (53.2%), and Iceland (50%) have the lowest level of disagreement, but this is still relatively high."

Climate activism and willingness to pay

In much of the data analysed for the report, there were no significant differences between age groups apart from questions on climate activism and willingness to pay.

Panellists were asked for their involvement in four key areas: joining an environmental group, joining an environmental protest, donating to an environmental group, and signing an environmental petition.

When breaking down the responses across all countries by age group, young adults (aged 17-34) show the highest overall engagement across most activities.

"Those aged 25-34 are most likely to sign petitions (16.3%) and donate to environmental groups (8.9%), while the youngest cohort (17-24) shows relatively high rates of petition signing (15.3%) and stands out as the most likely to join environmental groups (5.0%) and participate in protests (3.0%)."

When it comes to willingness to pay for environmental protection, paying higher prices emerges as the most acceptable form of contribution, compared with reductions in living standards, and then paying higher taxes.

Younger adults (17-24) are the least willing to pay much higher prices (34.3%), accept cuts to living standards (29.0%), or pay much higher taxes (25.6%) for environmental protection.

"These patterns suggest that middle-aged and older cohorts show greater willingness to contribute financially to environmental protection, although the results may reflect higher incomes and living standards that enable them to absorb costs more easily."

Provided by European Social Survey ERIC