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 2009 | Dec 2010 | Jun 2011 | Oct 2012 | Oct 2013 | Dec 2014 | Nov 2015 | Aug 2016 | Dec 2016 | |||
| Climate change is happening and is caused by human activity | 60% | 75% | 49% | 90% | 44% | 53% | 45% | 50% | 48% | 52% | 57% | 56% | 57% | 54% | ||
| We are just witnessing a normal fluctuation in the earth’s climate | 25% | 14% | 37% | 3% | 41% | 34% | 36% | 39% | 39% | 36% | 29% | 32% | 26% | 27% | ||
| Don’t know | 14% | 10% | 13% | 7% | 15% | 13% | 19% | 12% | 13% | 12% | 14% | 12% | 17% | 18% |
60% (up 6% since December) agree that climate change is happening and is caused by human activity and 25% (down 2%) believe that we may just be witnessing a normal fluctuation in the earth’s climate.
By age groups, those aged under 35 split 70%/15% and those aged 55+ split 47%/40%. People with higher education were more likely to think climate change is happening and is caused by human activity – those with university degrees split 72%/19%.