Environment
Survey: One in five people is worried about the climate every day
The Niederaussem power plant is a base-load power plant operated by RWE Power using lignite. Some of the power plant’s blocks were shut down. photo
© Oliver Berg/dpa
Wars, conflicts, a shift to the right – and then the climate crisis. This worries the majority of people in Germany. A look abroad shows differences.
Around one in five people According to a recent survey, Germany is worried about climate change every day. 19.8 percent stated this in a survey by the auditing firm PwC, which was available to the German Press Agency before publication.
In an international comparison, around 28 percent of those surveyed agreed with this statement. Pwc surveyed around 20,000 people in 31 countries – in Europe, Asia, North and South America and Africa. These also include countries in which the consequences of global warming are already significantly more serious than in Germany.
60 percent of those surveyed in Germany also said they were generally concerned about the climate crisis. However, according to the information, they do not think about it regularly. On an international average, this statement applied to slightly fewer people: around 57 percent. Around 19 percent in Germany were not at all worried about climate change – compared to an international average of just under 14 percent.
According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the earth has already warmed by around 1.1 degrees due to human activities. This has an impact in all regions of the world – for example more frequent and severe extreme weather events such as floods, heat waves or droughts. Climate change therefore causes losses and damage to people and nature. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, persistent greenhouse gas emissions will cause temperatures to continue to rise. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warns: The greater the warming, the greater the risk of loss and damage with irreversible consequences.