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Public willing to make sacrifices to beat climate change

Four out of five people believe climate change is a serious risk to our way of life and are willing to make personal sacrifices to combat it, according to a survey released by the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE).

The survey, which polled 1000 people, found 84% of people think climate change is a serious or very serious risk to our way of life. The same amount of people would be willing to make changes to the way they travel to help reduce their carbon emissions.

The level of sacrifice people are prepared to make ranges from significant changes such as getting rid of a personal car altogether, to minimal efforts like taking public transport or riding a bike more often.

Only 17% aren’t prepared to make any sacrifices to the way they travel to help tackle climate change.

The survey coincides with the release of the Institution’s State of the Nation - Low Carbon Infrastructure report which explains why infrastructure, alongside behaviour change and political action is fundamental to creating a low carbon society.

Greg Lutton, the Chairman of ICE North East, pointed out that this region is now leading the way in generating low-carbon solutions. “The North East’s recently acquired status as a Low-Carbon Economic Area is, in many ways, a recognition of the pioneering work being done in the Region by universities, local authorities, and most encouragingly in the private sector to provide low-carbon futures, not only to the people of the North East, but across the globe.

“Many of the technologies we need to meet emissions targets already exist, but are being constrained by unfavourable conditions for delivery. With lengthy lead times for new and upgraded infrastructure, our immediate focus must be on rolling out proven low carbon technologies that are commercially viable at scale.

“In the longer term government and industry must focus on designing infrastructure in a way that makes low carbon behaviour as easy as possible, and eventually the norm.”

The full report can be found at www.ice.org.uk/stateofthenation.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .