Economic security and international conflicts are becoming more important than climate change policies in five EU countries. Germans and Poles think adapting to climate change matters more than reducing its causes.
People have become more concerned about security and the cost of living, and less concerned with climate change between 2020 and 2024.
That is according to the latest report from Brussels-based think tank Bruegel analysing the views of 7,819 people in France, Germany, Italy, and Sweden.
Outright climate change deniers are in a small minority in Europe.
The number of people who say climate change “is not a big issue” rose from 3% to 9% in Germany and from 4% to 11% in Poland in the span of four years.
Economic stability and growth (60%), and security and defence (58%) are the issues on top of people’s minds in these five countries.
However, climate policy has not been relegated far down their list of concerns, following in third place at 39%.
Immigration and refugees policies are almost placed on the same level as climate policy at 38% – a difference of one percentage point.
“A topic extensively covered by the media and the top theme of far-right parties in many countries, and increasingly centre-right ones as well,” the Bruegel report stated.
What is the best approach to tackle climate change for the EU citizens?
In Italy, 49% of the respondents want to see the environment as one of the three political priorities of the EU in the next few years.
This is followed by France at 41% and Germany at 38%.
Nine out of 10 Europeans agree that action is needed to respond to climate change.
However, between 2020 and 2024, support for stopping climate change fell in all five countries, while support for adapting to climate change rose in all of them.
This change was most pronounced in Germany and Poland, where just under two-thirds of respondents supported all actions to stop climate change in 2020, but only about half did so in 2024.
While the gap between mitigation and adaptation support remains very pronounced in Italy, in Sweden the level of support among these two categories is very narrow.
In most countries, only a minority thinks that climate change is mostly caused by natural processes or is not real at all.
Poland records the highest share of these views at 23%, followed by Sweden at 19%.
Scepticism is most commonly found among those who consider themselves to be financially comfortable or rich.
“This aligns with previous research that has shown how higher status groups, who benefit from the status quo, are sometimes less open to transformative climate policies,” the report stated.
Video editor • Mert Can Yilmaz
