The environment is the third-most important area of concern for European citizens, after public health and the economy, having grown in prominence over the past decade, new analysis from Kaunas University of Technology (KTU) has suggested.
The analysis, which was published in a new monograph, Green European Revisited, examines how environmental attitudes have evolved across Europe in recent years, using data collected via the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP).
“There is a myth, which I hear time and time again, that Europe is a so-called green continent, whereas in reality, Europe has placed exceptionally heavy pressures on the natural environment, greater in some respects than those generated by several other continents combined,” commented Professor Audronė Telešienė, researcher at KTU and chief editor.
“As the first continent to industrialise, it has experienced extensive and long-term ecosystem degradation.”
Broader concerns
As the report noted, European leaders continue to demonstrate leadership in implementing green policies that can help the world deal with the climate crisis and its impacts – however broader concerns, such as the financial crisis and COVID-19 pandemic, have also weighed on citizens’ concerns.
“In the years between 2010 and 2020, the world has gone through several global shocks,” Telešienė added. “In 2010 we were in the midst of a financial crisis, in 2015–2016 we had the migration crisis, in 2020 the COVID-19 pandemic. Some of the survey data was collected after 2022, when the war in Ukraine started.
“We wanted to see whether these overlapping crises shifted Europeans’ attention away from the environment.”
Environmental agenda
As the researchers noted, these ‘polycrises’ didn’t push the environment off the European agenda – instead, the opposite was true. In 2020, around 30% of Europeans identified climate change as the most important environmental issue, compared with 15% in 2010.
“The sharpest rise in concern about climate change was in the Nordic countries, with Iceland showing the biggest jump – from 13% to 43%,” added Professor Aistė Balžekienė, head of the KTU Civil Society and Sustainability Research Group.
“In other countries, instead of naming climate change itself, people became more worried about its direct consequences, such as heatwaves or water shortages.” Read more here.
