Climate Change, Pollution Top List of Europeans' Environmental Concerns
March 14, 2008 // Published as a news service by IHS
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A Eurobarometer survey published on March 13 shows that over two-thirds of Europeans prefer policy decisions on the environment to be made at the European Union (EU) level.
Climate change topped the list of Europeans' environmental concerns, followed by water pollution, air pollution, man-made disasters, and the use of chemicals in everyday products.
A majority of European citizens also said they are apprehensive about the use of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in agriculture.
The report showed that Europeans are increasingly aware of the role played by the environment in their daily lives: More than 95% feel that it is important to protect the environment, and 80% feel it influences their quality of life and that they have a role to play in protecting it.
Stavros Dimas, EU environment commissioner, said, "Most Europeans say that the European Union should do more for the environment and that decisions on the environment are best made at the European level. An overwhelming majority of Europeans see harmonised European environmental legislation as necessary, and believe that the EU should help other countries improve their environmental standards."
Europeans willing to buy green products
About three-quarters of European citizens declared they are ready to buy environmentally friendly products, even if this means paying a bit more. However, on average, only 17% of Europeans said they had bought environmentally friendly products within the previous month. This means that nearly 60% of Europeans say they are willing to switch to green products, but have not yet done so.
The majority of Europeans (52%) also said they would be able to recognise a genuinely environmentally friendly product by its label.
Environmental protection not an obstacle to economic performance
Nearly two-thirds of Europeans feel that protecting the environment is more of an incentive to innovate (63%) than an obstacle to economic performance (16%). Almost as many Europeans (64%) feel that protecting the environment must be given priority over economic competitiveness, while 18% feel that competitiveness is more important.
More than two-thirds of European citizens are also convinced that the progress of individual countries should be measured using social, environmental and economic indicators, while a minority (15%) believe that progress should be mostly based on monetary and economic indicators.
Global responses to global problems
About two-thirds of European citizens prefer to see decisions on the environment made jointly within the EU rather than at the national level.
A large proportion of Europeans also say that they see harmonised European environmental legislation as necessary (82%), that the EU should help non-EU countries improve their environmental standards (80%) and that the EU should allocate more money to the protection of the environment (78%).
Another 78% of Europeans also say it would be useful to create a European civil protection force to deal with natural disasters in their country.
More information
For more information, see:
Source: European Commission.