Three-quarters of Australians say climate warming "a catastrophic risk", even as government turns a blind eye

Three in four Australians understand that climate warming poses a “catastrophic risk,” even as the Australian government turns a blind eye. That was the clear result from a new survey for the Global Challenges Forum (GCF), and the publication of its 2017 Global Catastrophic Risk report.

84% of 8000 people surveyed in eight countries for the GCF consider climate change a “global catastrophic risk”. The figure for the Australian sample was 75%.

Question were asked about a number of risks, including nuclear war, pandemics, biological weapons, climate change and environmental collapse. The climate question asked how much participants agreed or disagreed that “climate change, resulting in environmental damage, such as rising sea levels or melting of icecaps” could be considered as "a global catastrophic risk”? A global catastrophic risk was described as “a future event that has the potential to affect 10% of the global population”.

For Australia, the results were: 39% “strongly agree” and 36% “tend to agree” (for total agree of 75%); with “tend to disagree” at 15%, “strongly disagree” at 6% and 4% “don’t know”.

Read David Spratt’s story on Climate Code Red - “Three-quarters of Australians say climate warming "a catastrophic risk", even as government turns a blind eye.”