Highlights of Results
Aug. 19 to Sept 13, 2002
(25,164 people from 175 countries)
- There was a surprisingly strong consensus of opinion around the globe.
- Overall people said they were very dissatisfied with the state of the world and the environment in particular.
- They have little confidence in either their national governments or international organizations to solve the most pressing problems.
- They see the answers coming from the people themselves and how we live our lives on a daily basis.
- People say they are willing to pay a significant financial price for a cleaner environment.
- Global Conditions - By 71-28%, respondents are more unhappy than happy with the world's general condition.
- Issue Concerns - Environment (28%) is the #2 issue to economic concerns (33%) such as poverty, jobs, and standard of living. Terrorism (13%) is a distant third. A 53% majority pick "environment" as the first or second most important problem in the world today.
- Environmental Quality - Quality of global environment is rated negative (55% bad, 15% good, 29% neutral) and getting worse (67%) not better (19%); meanwhile, quality of respondents' local country's environment is rated higher than planet's (34% good, 33% bad, 33% neutral), but still getting worse (53%) not better (28%).
- Biggest Problems - Biggest global environmental problem is water pollution. For most issues, respondents perceive a bigger world threat than in their own country. This is especially true for population growth. Overall, air pollution is the top "local country" problem.
Global and Local Country Environmental Issue Importance
(Mean Score - 1-10 scale)
- Responsible for Solving Problems - Most responsible for solving the world's environmental problems are local/national governments (74%) - even though they are rated negatively for the work they do today (29% positive, 54% negative) in protecting the environment. Second most responsible are "average citizens" (45%) followed by "international organizations" (34%). Large and international businesses are seen as much more of a negative (67%) than positive force on the global environment.
- Ideas for Improvement - In rating various ideas to improve the environment, respondents are much more likely to see "people's behavior" rather than "taxes" as the best path.
Best Ways to Improve the Environment
- Environment vs Economy - By about three-to-one (74-23%), environmental protection is given priority over economic growth. About half (46%) say "environmental policies" are one of the top three issues in deciding how to vote in elections.
- Environmental Laws - Half (51%) say current environmental laws are not strict enough, new national and international agreements are needed; one-third (33%) believes current law is sufficient, but enforcement is too lax.
- Paying for Improvements - Two-thirds (68%) are willing to give up at least 1% of their income for real environmental quality improvement (23% would give "more than 5%" of their income).
- Sources of Environmental News - The Internet (38%) is the number one source of news on the environment; newspaper (17%) and TV (17%) combine for less than Internet.
- Working for Change - Sixty-one percent (61%) "regularly" do something in their daily lives to improve the environment.
- The WSSD Summit - The Johannesburg Earth Summit is judged as valuable (and not a "waste of time") by 60% to 36%.
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