EIB Climate Survey: Governments Less Concerned Than People

The EIB Climate Survey 2021–2022 has examined how people in Europe currently feel about climate change. Here are the results for Austria:

• 73 percent of the respondents in Austria consider climate change and its consequences to be the greatest challenge facing humanity in the 21st century.
• 66 percent believe they are more concerned about the climate emergency than their government.
• 70 percent think that climate change is affecting their everyday lives.
• 67 percent of those surveyed do not believe that Austria will succeed in drastically reducing its CO2 emissions by 2050 in a Paris-compliant manner.
• 64 percent are in favor of stricter government measures that force changes in behavior (7 percentage points more than last year).
• 66 percent are in favor of a tax on products and services that contribute most to global warming.
• 83 percent want to replace short-haul flights with environmentally friendly express train connections in cooperation with neighboring countries.
• People in Austria are much less behind nuclear energy than the EU average (4 percent compared to 12 percent).
• More than others in Europe (23 percent compared to 17 percent), Austrians think that their country should focus on energy savings.

In its fourth climate survey, the European Investment Bank (EIB) asked more than 30 people across Europe about climate change. A representative sample of the population was used in each of the 000 participating countries.

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash