businessinfomag.uk magazine 22 BUSINESS BRIEFING Epson has conducted a Climate Reality Barometer to capture the perceptions of climate change from 15,264 consumers across Europe, Asia, North America and South America. The results reveal a potentially damaging gap between climate reality and people’s understanding of its catastrophic effects How do people feel about the climate crisis? on Climate Change (IPCC) reports that some human-driven climate change will take millennia to reverse1, and given a litany of global events – including the warmest July2 ever recorded, wildfires3 in Europe, North America and Asia, and floods4 in China, Columbia and Germany – Epson’s Climate Reality Barometer’s findings suggest a triumph of optimism over evidence and a damaging Climate Reality Deficit. Henning Ohlsson, Director of Sustainability, Epson Europe, said: “As the climate emergency unfolds before our eyes, it’s of real concern that so many people fail to recognise, or even actively deny, its existence. This is a wake-up call for everyone – governments, businesses and individuals – to work together so that COP 26 makes the decisions and inspires the actions needed to mitigate climate change.” Reality check: Understanding vs action The Barometer suggests that optimism may be the result of a failure to recognise climate change and, therefore, its scale. Around three quarters of respondents see the link between climate change and rising global temperatures (77%), extreme weather (74%) and wildfires (73%). In contrast, awareness fell to just over half for events such as famine (57%), mass human migrations (55%) and insect outbreaks (51%). Many see responsibility to tackle the emergency belonging to state and industry sectors. Of those surveyed, more than one in four (27%) identify governments, and 18% businesses, as “most responsible”. Close to 18% acknowledge personal responsibility. When questioned about their views on humanity’s ability to avert a climate crisis within their lifetimes, close to half of respondents (46%) state they are “very” or “somewhat” optimistic. This significantly outweighs just 27% who express that they are very or somewhat pessimistic. The most popular reasons supporting this optimism are growing public awareness of climate change (32%), the ability of science and technology to provide solutions (28%) and the move towards renewable energies (19%). The UK tops the list of European climate deniers, with more than one in 20 (6.1%) Britons not believing in a climate emergency. As the Intergovernmental Panel
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy NDUxNDM=