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Climate change

8 Apr 2014

Q. Do you believe that there is fairly conclusive evidence that climate change is happening and caused by human activity or do you believe that the evidence is still not in and we may just be witnessing a normal fluctuation in the earth’s climate which happens from time to time?

 

Total

 

Vote Labor

Vote Lib/Nat

Vote Greens

Vote other

 

Nov 09

Dec 10

Jun 11

Oct 12

Oct 13

Jan 14

Climate change is happening and is caused by human activity

56%

70%

39%

87%

46%

53%

45%

50%

48%

52%

51%

We are just witnessing a normal fluctuation in the earth’s climate

34%

23%

51%

5%

39%

34%

36%

39%

39%

36%

39%

Don’t know

10%

7%

10%

8%

15%

13%

19%

12%

13%

12%

11%

56% (up 5% since January) agree that climate change is happening and is caused by human activity and 34% (down 5%) believe that we may just be witnessing a normal fluctuation in the earth’s climate. This is the largest gap recorded between these figures since this question was first asked in 2009.

By age groups, those aged under 35 split 65%/22% and those aged 55+ split 42%/52%. People with higher education were more likely to think climate change is happening and is caused by human activity – those with university degrees split 66%/24%.

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