Eight out of ten Germans see climate change as a “very serious problem” – EU survey

The proportion of peole in Germany who consider climate change to be "the single most serious problem facing the world" has doubled since 2017 to 30 percent, the latest Eurobarometer survey on citizen support for climate action shows. 81 percent of respondents in Germany saw climate change as a "very serious problem" – a slightly higher proportion than the EU average of 79 percent. Only "poverty, hunger and lack of drinking water" ranked as an even more serious problem facing the world among Germans and EU citizens overall. About nine out of ten Germans and EU citizens overall agreed that the EU economy should be made climate neutral by 2050. Eight out of ten Germans agreed that more public financial support should be provided for the transition to clean energy sources even if this meant reducing subsidies for fossil fuels, while 90 percent found it important that the German government sets targets to increase the amount of renewable energy used by 2030. The Eurobarometer survey's results were published in September and are based on fieldwork that took place in April 2019.

A long-term study by insurer R+V recently showed that about 40 percent of people in the country fear that rising global temperatures will have a "dramatic" impact on human life. The 2018 drought and heat wave across central Europe led many to consider climate action as a political priority, but the country is still struggling to meet its own emission reduction objectives.