A recent public opinion survey of Czech attitudes to environmental issues suggests that, on the whole, Czechs care about the environment and most do not doubt that anthropogenic climate change is happening. But when it comes to concrete measures to combat it, they cannot agree.
“There is a clear consensus in Czech society that climate change is happening and that it is a problem. That environmental protection is necessary and that something needs to be done about it is also a widely held attitude. The questions of what should be done about it and when, however, are topics that people do not agree on so much.”
These are the words of Jitka Uhrová from the empirical research institute STEM, one of the two organisations behind the survey that came out this week, titled Česká (ne)transformace or Czech (non) transformation 2022. Taking into account past surveys, she says that this acceptance of climate change is relatively firmly embedded in Czech society by now.
The survey even found broad support for certain measures combatting climate change, such as renewable energy sources. But the question of how fast we need to act was one of the issues that threw up more diverse responses among the survey respondents, according to Jan Krajhanzl, a social psychologist from Institute 2050, the other organization behind the survey.
“50% of people say they would like environmental protection to take place without delay. Even when we asked explicitly whether due to the problems that have arisen as a result of the war in Ukraine, there should be some kind of suspension of climate change measures, half of the respondents still said no. Another 15 to 20 percent of people say that climate protection should take place intensively within this decade.”
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