In a recent global study by The Alliance of Democracies Foundation and Latana, Europeans prioritize reducing immigration over addressing climate change. Furthermore, less than 15% of respondents worldwide consider climate issues as a top three priority for their national governments.
The study, based on over 62,950 responses, claims to be the “world’s largest annual study on how people perceive democracy” and its relation to the probably challenges governments are currently facing.
The report cites climate change as one of the top global challenges. However, it trails behind war and violent conflict, and poverty and hunger, which took up the first two slots, respectively. This is based on responses from 33% of the sample pool. The study also finds out that most countries identify terrorism or economic instability as their primary global challenge, with Italy being the only country to rank climate change as its topmost concern.
As per the study, even though 33% of the global population considers climate change as one of the top three worldwide challenges, only 14% believe it should be a priority for their governments. There seems to be a regional difference as well, with 36% of Europeans seeing climate change as a global challenge while only 19% believing it should be a government priority. In Asia, the statistics stood at 35% and 14%, respectively, whereas, in Latin America, the numbers drop from 32% to 7%.
Another vital revelation of the report is that Europeans prioritize immigration issues over climate change, particularly so in Western European countries. In fact, an increase in the number of people who say “reducing immigration” should be a top government priority correlates with a decline in the number of people who believe “fighting climate change” should be prioritized by their governments.
If you want to delve into the details of the study, feel free to peruse here.