Climate lags behind poverty, food, energy among key global issues, BBC survey finds
19 Jan 2010
London – Extreme poverty is a more serious problem for the world than climate change, terrorism or the state of the global economy, according to a new annual global poll across 23 countries conducted for BBC World Service.
Survey company GlobeScan interviewed more than 25,000 people interviewed by GlobeScan were asked to say how serious they thought each of a range of global problems were, the following percentages of people rated these issues as “very serious”:
71% extreme poverty
64% the environment or pollution
63% the rising cost of food and energy
59% the spread of human diseases
59% terrorism
58% climate change
59% human rights abuses
58% the state of the global economy
57% war or armed conflict
48% violation of workers’ rights
Poverty was rated as the most serious global issue in 10 of the countries polled, including the UK, the US, Kenya, Australia, Brazil and Chile, though in Russia, Turkey, Mexico, Indonesia and Nigeria more felt that the rising cost of food and energy was very serious.
The poll, which was conducted before the Copenhagen summit took place, also suggests that the Japanese are the only nation to regard climate change as the most serious global issue - although the Chinese and Costa Ricans identified environmental issues more generally or pollution as the most serious. China ranked climate change as the second most serious issue, whereas the US ranked it ninth.
And, while poverty was some distance ahead of other global issues in terms of how serious it was seen to be, it was only one of a number of issues that people had discussed with friends and family recently. The greatest number - 30% - said they had talked about rising food and energy costs with their friends and family recently, with extreme poverty and the spread of human diseases the second most discussed issues (29%) and the state of the global economy third (28%).
In the US, Canada, the UK, Germany, China, Spain and Australia, the state of the global economy was the most discussed issue. Brazilians, meanwhile, were the only country where the greatest number had discussed the environment with their friends and family over the previous month.
GlobeScan research director, Sam Mountford, said: “Even if the global recession has kept economic problems top of people’s minds this year, extreme poverty is clearly viewed as the world’s most serious global problem. But with many other global problems seen as very serious, this represents a daunting agenda for institutions like the UN and G20 to address.”
The full results and more information can be found at www.bbcworldservice.com/worldagenda.
