"Global Warming" or "Climate Change"

Anthony Wells

— 2 min read
Share

I like data from tracking polls. There is often no "correct" way of asking about a subject and answers can come down to how you word a question, but if you ask a question in the same way over a long period of time then - all things being equal - any significant change you see should reflect a genuine change in public opinion. For that reason I am always very loathe to change the wording of tracking questions, as you are throwing away all that past data and any change you see is as likely to be due to different wording as it is to changing opinion. However, there comes a time when the vocabulary used in the public debate changes, and the wording you've used in the past really isn't the wording you'd use if designing a question today.

In past years YouGov has asked about public opinion towards climate change using this question:

On the subject of climate change do you think: The world is becoming warmer as a result of human activity The world is becoming warmer but NOT because of human activity The world is NOT becoming warmer Not sure

  • In 2008, 55% thought human activity was making the world warmer, 25% thought the world was getting warmer, but not because of humanity, 7% thought the world was NOT getting warmer. 13% weren't sure.
  • In 2010, 39% thought human activity was making the world warmer, 27% thought the world was getting warmer, but not because of humanity, 18% thought the world was NOT getting warmer. 16% weren't sure.
  • In 2012 43% thought human activity was making the world warmer, 22% thought the world was getting warmer, but not because of humanity, 15% thought the world was NOT getting warmer. 20% weren't sure.
  • Now 39% think human activity was making the world warmer, 16% think the world is getting warmer, but not because of humanity, 28% thought the world was NOT getting warmer. 17% weren't sure.

For what its worth the percentage of people thinking that human activity is making the world warmer fell between 2008 and 2010, but has been pretty constant for the last 3 years. However, the proportion of people who think the world isn't getting warmer at all has markedly increased - from just 7% in 2008 to 28% now. This isn't really surprising given some of the weather we've had of late (before anyone points it out, localised weather is Britain is clearly not necessarily reflective of global temperatures... but that doesn't mean it won't have an impact on public opinion!).

However since 2008 the debate has also changed, and has often concentrated upon wider impacts of climate change, on weather patterns, on making weather more extreme or unpredictable and so on, rather than just the narrower issue of rising global temperatures. You can imagine this may have a significant impact on someone's answers - there may well be people who think that climate change is happening... but not in the sense of increasing global temperatures. This month YouGov asked two questions in parallel, on two separate samples - one asking about the world getting warmer, the other asking about the world's climate changing. It produces very different results.

39% of people think human activity is making the world warmer. 53% of people think human activity is changing the world's climate. 16% think the world is getting warmer, but not because of human activity. 26% think the climate is changing, but NOT because of human activity 28% think the world is NOT getting warmer. 6% think the climate is not changing.

Read more