Does your financial situation impact your attitude to climate change?

The ‘Climate Change in the Irish Mind’ project (CCIM) is a nationally representative study of Irish people’s beliefs, attitudes, policy preferences, and behaviours regarding climate change, undertaken by the Irish Environmental Protection Agency and the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication.

Across Ireland, many families are grappling with financial pressures arising from external factors such as inflation and the housing crisis. The CCIM Insight report ‘Personal Economy’ investigates how personal economic circumstances can influence people’s perspectives on topics like overall policy outlook, support for climate change policies, and trust in climate change information sources. The report divides Irish households into groups based on the level of difficulty or ease they had trying to ‘make ends meet’ in the last 12 months.

Our analysis found that those who had any difficulty making ends meet:

• Reported less trust in most sources of information about climate change than the national average, especially in environmental NGOs, mainstream news media, and political leaders.

• Were significantly less likely to ‘strongly support’ higher taxes on cars that use petrol and diesel (19%) than the ‘no difficulty’ group (28%).

• Experiencing ‘Great difficulty/ Difficulty making ends meet’ was also linked with fewer people thinking that climate action could improve economic growth and create new jobs (46%) than the national total (56%).

This report highlights the need for climate communicators and policy-makers to speak to all demographics and understand the concerns of those experiencing difficulties making ends meet:

• Provide clear information about where and how economic benefits of climate action will occur.

• Address concerns about hidden costs.

• Highlight non-economic advantages—such as improved quality of life and better personal health.

Read the full report on the EPA Website.