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%.