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Global warming
About the author
Natasha Kassam
Natasha Kassam was Director of the Lowy Institute's Public Opinion and Foreign Policy Program from 2019 to 2022, directing the annual Lowy Institute Poll and researching China’s politics, Taiwan, and Australia-China relations.
Topics
The majority of Australians continue to express concern about climate change in 2022. Six in ten Australians (60%) say ‘global warming is a serious and pressing problem’ about which ‘we should begin taking steps now even if this involves significant costs’. This is unchanged from 2021, and remains eight points below the highest level of concern expressed in 2006 (68%). Three in ten Australians (29%) say the ‘problem of global warming should be addressed, but its effects will be gradual, so we can deal with the problem gradually by taking steps that are low in cost’, while 10% say that ‘until we are sure that global warming is really a problem, we should not take any steps that would have economic costs’.
The number of Australians (62%) who say climate change poses a critical threat to Australia’s vital interests in the next ten years has also remained stable since 2021. Three-quarters of Australians (75%) support providing aid to Pacific Island states to take action on climate change.
