Datafolha: 89% think climate change will affect their lives – 06/04/2023 – Environment

Nine out of ten Brazilians think they will suffer impacts from climate change in their personal lives, and two thirds of the population see that life will be greatly affected by extreme weather events in the next five years.

There is also consensus on the distribution of this impact: 95% of people think that the poorest portion will suffer from these effects.

The data are part of a survey by Datafolha that heard 2,028 people, from 126 municipalities, over 16 years old, on March 29th and 30th. The margin of error is two percentage points.

While the majority think that climate change will hurt the poorest part of the population a lot (82%), a minority think that the rich population will suffer the same way (24%).

When evaluating the concern with the impacts on their personal lives, 70% of women say that there will be a lot of damage – a rate that drops to 62% among men.

One possible reason is the unequal damage caused by the climate crisis, which, as already identified in studies, generates social problems such as migration, child violence and forced marriages, which affect the female population more.

For Lori Regattieri, senior fellow at the Mozilla Foundation, the highlight also indicates that women can be more attentive to risks to their own health and that of their family, in addition to reacting faster.

“They emerge in terms of concern, especially when we have issues involving their health, that of their families and children”, says the researcher, who studies digital behavior and misinformation in the climate and socio-environmental agenda.

Regattieri points out that perception also needs to consider aspects of color and lace. “When we talk about black women, they are more likely to live in risky areas. That’s where environmental racism is perceived.”

The perception of a lot of damage in personal life was pointed out by 69% of black and brown people heard in the survey, against 61% among white people. The margin of error is three percentage points for brown people, and four and six for whites and blacks, respectively.

The survey also reveals a very similar concern about climate change between those who voted for President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) and those who said they voted for former President Jair Bolsonaro (PL) in the second round of the 2022 elections. they are also close when comparing those of PT and PL supporters (when only the acronyms are cited, without mentioning the candidates in question).

The damage to personal life resulting from changes in the climate is pointed out by 89% of Lula’s voters and 88% of Bolsonaro’s voters. The research, therefore, may indicate that the fear of impacts on one’s own life surpasses the political position — in the campaign, Lula said that he would prioritize the climate agenda, while the Bolsonaro administration promoted a dismantling of environmental public policies.

In the view of Marcio Astrini, executive secretary of the Climate Observatory, a network of socio-environmental organizations, this is because the relationship between political support and climate change is still not as direct in Brazil as problems of employment, hunger, poverty and health.

“For the composition of the vote, the question of climate and environment is not so decisive [no Brasil] as in countries that have already overcome these problems”, he says.

Astrini also believes that Bolsonaro voters do not credit the former president for weakening environmental policy.

“What we see is that there is a narrative created for this audience: that Bolsonaro is not a bad person for the environment agenda, that the accusations are the invention of leftists, that the environmental movement in the world is bankrolled by communists against development from the country.”

The immediate damage that could be caused by extremely heavy rain is another concern highlighted in the survey. For more than half of the population (61%), extreme precipitation is a risk to the house where they live, and 86% point to a risk to the infrastructure —streets, bridges and avenues— of the city where they live.

The broad perception of climate change is nothing new in Brazil, according to previous surveys by Datafolha. A survey carried out in 2010 showed that 75% of Brazilians thought that human activities contributed a lot to global warming —which is a widely spread scientific consensus. In 2019, this index dropped to 72%.

The most recent report by the UN climate scientific panel (IPCC), released on March 20 —a few days before the Datafolha survey was carried out, therefore— emphasizes that the world is living under unprecedented climate pressure and that some damage is already irreversible.

Scientists warn that the deadline to act and stop global warming at 1.5°C, the goal of the Paris Agreement, is short and requires quick action by countries.

_{O The Planeta em Transe project is supported by the Open Society Foundations.}