New Delhi: There is increasing awareness and recognition among Indians that climate change and particularly global warming will have very harmful consequences for the world. More than three out of every four Indians think that global warming will adversely impact both the current and future generations of citizens in the county.
Almost 81 per cent of respondents in India are worried about global warming.
This was revealed by a nationwide survey conducted by CVoter on behalf of the Yale Program of Climate Change Communication.
The survey was conducted between October 2021 and January 2022 and covered a scientifically designed random sample size of 4,619 adult Indians who were above 18 years of age.
The exclusive survey also reveals how public perceptions in India about the harmful impact of global warming have been changing dramatically compared to a decade ago when a similar survey was conducted in late 2011.
Speaking on the subject, Dr. Anthony Leiserowitz of Yale University said, “Large majorities of people in India say global warming will cause either a “great deal” or a “moderate amount” of harm to people and other species. That includes plant and animal species (80 per cent), people in India (77 per cent), future generations of people (77 per cent), people in their own community (72 per cent), and themselves and their own family (69 per cent).”
Dr. Jagadish Thaker of the University of Auckland, said, “The percentage of people in India who say global warming will cause harm to each of these groups is higher than in 2011: plant and animal species (+15 percentage points), people in India (+13), future generations of people (+11), people in their own community (+12), and themselves and their own family (+13).”
“The trendlines are alarming,” said Yashwant Deshmukh, founder and director of CVoter International. Deshmukh further noted that in the past few decades Indians have been directly or indirectly suffering from the unpredictable weather which has disturbed the centuries old established agrarian cycles causing phases of distress in the farming community.
This includes 50 per cent who are very worried about the impact of global warming on their lives and livelihoods and the ability cum resilience of families and communities to withstand events triggered by climate change. Four out of every five respondents think that global warming will harm plant and animal species. As already mentioned, three fourths think it will harm Indians.
A big majority of respondents were of the opinion that they individually and their families and their communities will possibly bear the brunt of the harmful impacts that are already being caused by global warming. The importance given through public platforms to climate change and global warming by the top political leadership of the country is also making citizens more aware of the perils involved in climate change events.
More than eight in 10 people in India (84 per cent) say global warming is either “extremely important” (39 per cent), “very important” (29 per cent), or “somewhat important” (16 per cent) to them personally. Very few say it is either “not very important” (2 per cent) or “not at all important” (3 per cent), while 11 per cent say they don’t know or did not provide a response.
The total percentage of people in India who say global warming is either “extremely,” “very,” or “somewhat” important to them is 21 percentage points higher than in 2011, while the proportion who say it is either “not very” or “not at all” important is 20 percentage points lower.
About one in four people in India say the monsoon in their local area has become less predictable compared to the past. More than half of people in India say they have observed changes in the predictability of the monsoon in their local area. This includes about four in ten (41 per cent) who say the monsoon has become more predictable compared to the past and 27 per cent who say it has become less predictable. About one in four (26 per cent) say it has not changed.
Compared to 2011, a higher percentage of people in India now say the monsoon has become more predictable in their area (+17 percentage points), while a smaller percentage say it has become less predictable (-11), and about the same percentage say it has not changed.
–IANS
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