According to a new survey, United Kingdom citizens believe that climate change is a more important issue to be addressed than Brexit — i.e., Britain leaving the European Union. Even though the negotiations of Brexit have been messy, the people think tackling climate change should be the top priority to the newly-appointed Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
During Johnson’s inaugural speech he briefly mentioned the environment, saying that Britain was “leading the world in the battery technology that will help cut CO2 and tackle climate change and produce green jobs for the next generation.”
Still, six out of 10 adults said the government was not doing enough to prioritize the climate crisis. Almost two-thirds (61%) of respondents said the Conservative Government led by Johnson is not doing enough to prioritize climate actions, regardless of the recently set net-zero goal for 2050. Lack of policy around decarbonizing transport was one of the key concerns voiced.
Christian Aid commissioned the ComRes survey. It showed that up to 71% of the UK public agreed that, in the long term, climate change would be more important than the country’s departure from the EU. It found that women and young people, and residents from Wales and the East Midlands, were more likely to say that action over climate change is a more pressing priority than issues around Brexit.
Christian Aid’s director of advocacy Laura Taylor said:
It’s clear that beyond the present political turmoil, UK adults know there is a bigger crisis which is potentially catastrophic for the whole of humanity – particularly some of the world’s poorest people, who are more vulnerable to the effects of this climate emergency.
I hope the Prime Minister will hear the challenge from the majority of the UK public to do more to tackle this climate emergency. We need a rapid and radical shift to reduce emissions in the UK and we need global action for climate justice in which the most vulnerable communities are supported.
The survey came at the same time the UK was trying to solve its exit from the EU. The stress of the procedure taking longer than anticipated was fresh in the mind of the citizens. The withdrawal agreement reached between the EU and the UK has been rejected three times by UK MPs, thus dragging out the exit process over two years already. The consequences of this will likely be severe. As projected by the UK government: in 15 years, the country’s economy will be anywhere from 4% to 9% smaller under Brexit than it would inside the bloc, depending on the exit arrangement.
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