Attitudes to Climate Change from the Perspective of the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland
Attitudes to Climate Change from the Perspective of the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland

Summary/Abstract: Successful climate change mitigation and adaptation depend on several factors that are crucial for the effective implementation of the environmental policy tools in a country. One of these is the people´s attitudes to this issue, their awareness about it, and their willingness to change their behaviour in a way that will contribute to a cleaner environment. Climate change is a serious problem and the recent changes are the real reason for our concerns. The impact of global warming is transforming our environment, and, especially, increasing the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issued in October 2018 its Special Report on the impact of global warming of 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels and related global greenhouse gas emission pathways. Without stepping up international climate action, global average temperature increase could soon reach 2°C and will continue to rise. This will have an irreversible climate impact on the Earth and severe consequences on the productivity of Europe´s economy, infrastructure, ability to produce food, public health, biodiversity and political stability. The Paris Agreement, ratified by 181 countries, requires swift action in all countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, with the aim to hold a global temperature increase below 1.5°C. The goal is also to achieve a balance between emissions by sources and removals by sinks of greenhouse gases on a global scale. The threats and risks of climate change are known, and so are many ways to prevent them, which can be tackled if people actively engage. To succeed in the transformation to net-zero greenhouse gas emissions, citizens will need to play a central role. In this paper, we present the results of analysis that examines the public attitudes to climate change in three selected countries – the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland, in comparison with other countries which participated in the survey. The analysis is based on data from the European Social Survey Round 8 collected from 2016-2017, on a sample of 44, 387 respondents from 23 countries. We analyse the attitudes related to climate change beliefs, concerns about climate change and energy security and energy preferences. The analysis confirmed that people in all countries perceive that climate is changing and that it will have a bad impact across the world. Despite very similar perceptions of climate change, the climate concerns differ among countries and reflect the energy sources and traditions specific to each country. The respondents in all our three selected countries expressed only small worries about climate change. As regards climate concern, the analysis showed that respondents have more worries regarding energy affordability than from energy reliability. We can expect that these attitudes might be different where the prices for energy changed radically in the country or there is a a lack of energy sources. Therefore, energy dependency and energy supply are the two other very important concerns in public attitudes. The biggest worries from energy affordability in the selected countries was seen in the Czech Republic, followed by Poland and then Hungary. The energy supply sources, as the other analysed aspect in this paper, pointed out the popularity of renewable energy sources in comparison with fossil fuels as the source that has to be replaced. We can see the differences in energy sources preferences among all countries, which differs in the prevailing energy source used in the country. The one-way analysis confirmed statistically significant differences between countries in the climate concerns and energy supply sources, as well. The analysis also confirmed the relationship between concerns about the energy affordability and energy dependency and energy supply. The strongest relationship was between energy dependency and energy supply in all selected countries. In Hungary and Poland there was also a strong relationship between energy affordability and energy dependency. The final part of analysis refers to attitudes to the environmental policy tools. Financial incentives, taxation and other economic instruments are effective and efficient ways to meet environmental policy objectives and have to be set in a way that will contribute to successful climate change. The analysis confirmed the popularity of subsidised renewable energy in reducing climate change. The strategy of increasing taxes on fossil fuels seems to be the least popular in all countries, including the three selected countries. A comparison of the revenues from environment-related taxes has shown differences among the selected countries, from which the Czech Republic´s revenues are among the lowest in the EU. On the other hand, Hungary´s and Poland´s revenues from environmental-related taxes are higher than the EU average, especially in Poland. In countries with high environmental taxes, citizens were not in favour of increasing them again. They preferred subsidising renewable energy sources or banning the sale of the least energy efficient household appliances. Finally, we discuss the European Commission recommendations and assessments of the National Energy and Climate Plans (NECP), which are a good guidance for each Member State on, firstly, how to fulfil the obligations related to the Paris Agreement which are fully consistent with the Sustainable Development Goals, secondly, if they are reflected in public attitudes to the environmental policy tools, and, thirdly, if any kind of public consultation was carried out. Options such as renewables including sustainable advanced biofuels, energy efficiency, hydrogen and alternative fuels or new approaches to mobility are not sufficient for a net-zero greenhouse gas emissions economy. The success of the EU efforts in this low-carbon transition at a global level depends on international cooperation. There are a number of pathways for achieving it; all are challenging, but could be feasible from all perspectives, whether they be technological, economic, environmental or social.

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