Ipsos NZ 2023 Global Advisor Climate Change Report
New Zealanders are increasingly concerned about the impact of climate change, but fewer believe that the government has a clear plan in place to tackle it.
Auckland, 05 July 2023 – Significantly more New Zealanders are concerned about the impacts of climate change that are already being seen around the country (80%, up from 76% in 2022), while 82% of New Zealanders are also concerned about the impacts of climate change that are already being seen in other countries around the world.
The Ipsos Global Advisor Study regularly asks respondents from around the world, including New Zealand, for their views on different topics. Ipsos has conducted this study to understand perceptions around key environmental issues facing different countries, willingness to make personal changes to combat climate change and expectations from the government. The research also explored people’s perceptions of different climate change action and their effectiveness in reducing emissions. More than 20,000 people across 29 countries were surveyed. In New Zealand, 1,003 people aged 18+ participated in this survey.
Compared to others around the world, significantly more New Zealanders recognise that individuals, businesses and the government need to act now:
- 66% stated that if the government does not act now to combat climate change, it will be failing the people of New Zealand (compared to a global average of 61%)
- 65% stated that if businesses do not act now, they will be failing their employees and customers (59% global average)
- 67% stated that if individuals like me do not act now, we will be failing future generations (63% global average)
Notably, however, significantly fewer New Zealanders believe that the government has a clear plan in place for how government, businesses and people are going to work together to tackle climate change compared to last year (31%, down from 46% in 2022). Globally, awareness of governments’ climate change action plan also sits at 31% (down from 39% in 2022).
Compared to others around the world, New Zealanders are less likely to express agnostic views about climate change. Only 18% of New Zealanders think that the negative impact of climate change is too far off in the future to worry about (23% global average), 19% believe that climate change is beyond our control and that it’s too late to do anything about it (24% global average). Seeing the impacts of climate-driven weather events (51%), receiving financial incentives (51%) and having easily accessible information on how to act daily (49%) are the top drivers that encourage New Zealanders to personally respond to climate change.
Like the rest of the world, New Zealanders tend to perceive many actions as having a far greater impact on reducing emissions than they actually do. Recycling and growing/producing your own food continue to be incorrectly identified by New Zealanders as being among the top-3 most impactful carbon-reducing actions (the true rank for reducing emissions has recycling in 60th place, and growing/producing your own food in 23rd place). New Zealanders are also significantly less likely to correctly identify switching to purchasing renewable electricity as an impactful carbon-reducing actions.
Commenting on results of the Climate Change survey, Carin Hercock, Managing Director, Ipsos New Zealand, said: “While we see 8 out of 10 New Zealanders say they are concerned about the impact of climate change in New Zealand and 5 out of 10 say that seeing the impact of climate driven events in their country would encourage them to take personal action, it is concerning that the severe weather events we have experienced this year have not resulted in an increase in New Zealanders recognising that if we don’t act now to combat climate change, we are failing future generations. We see a similar trend in a reduction in climate change urgency across other countries Ipsos monitors which may be related to the global trend of inflation dominating the issues citizens across the world are concerned about.”
Amanda Dudding, Research Director, Public Affairs, Ipsos New Zealand, added: “New Zealanders are still overestimating the impact actions like recycling, growing your own food, using less packaging and buying fewer items will have in contributing to the reduction in greenhouse emissions and underestimating the actions that might be harder to do, but will have a far greater impact such as living car free, using public transport or improving housing for energy efficiency. Our understanding of many of these high impact actions are a lot lower than the global average so clearly more education is required.”
About the Study
These are the results of a 29-country survey conducted by Ipsos on its Global Advisor online platform and, in India, on its IndiaBus platform, between Friday 20th January and Friday 3rd February 2023 in 31 countries and between Friday 17th February and Friday 3rd March 2023 in Switzerland. The New Zealand survey was conducted between 23-30 May 2023
For this survey, Ipsos interviewed a total of 21,231 adults aged 18 years and older in India, 18-74 in Canada, Malaysia, South Africa, Turkey, and the United States, 20-74 in Thailand, 21-74 in Indonesia and Singapore, and 16-74 in all other countries. The New Zealand sample had a total of 1,002 respondents
The sample consists of approximately 1,000 individuals each in Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Japan, Spain, and the United States, and 500 individuals each in Argentina, Belgium, Chile, Colombia, Hungary, Indonesia, Israel, Malaysia, Mexico, the Netherlands, Peru, Poland, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, Sweden, Thailand and Turkey. The sample in India consists of approximately 2,200 individuals, of whom approximately 1,800 were interviewed face-to-face and 400 were interviewed online.
Samples in Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Great Britain, Hungary, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Poland, South Korea, Spain, Sweden and the U.S. can be considered representative of their general adult populations under the age of 75.
Samples in Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Indonesia, Israel, Malaysia, Mexico, Peru, Singapore, South Africa, Thailand, and Turkey are more urban, more educated, and/or more affluent than the general population. The survey results for these countries should be viewed as reflecting the more “connected” segment of their population.
