Poll results published this week show how Swiss view the environment and climate change.
© Alexander Sorokopud _ Dreamstime.com
72% agreed it was necessary to do something to combat climate change, 5% were undecided and 23% said it wasn’t.
43% were in favour of a carbon tax – a tax paid by polluters and redistributed to everyone, 14% were undecided and 43% were against it.
When asked whether state managed investments, such as publicly managed pension funds, should be forced to divest investments in the fossil fuel sector, 38% said yes, 33% were undecided and 29% said no.
However, at the same time, when asked to rank political priorities, only 6% of those asked put the environment at the top. Young, well educated and high earning respondents were more likely to place a high priority on the environment.
This suggests that while Swiss people want to see environmental action, they feel there are other more pressing problems to deal with.
The survey quizzed more than 22,000 people across Switzerland on a range of subjects at the end of last year.
The poll was done by Vimentis, an organisation run by volunteers with a mission to improve the quality of political debate by providing insight into where voters stand on political issues.
More on this:
Vimentis poll results (in French) – Take a 5 minute French test now
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