Europeans want governments to focus more on curbing migration than climate change, a study says
Europeans focus more on curbing immigration than on climate change and few of those interviewed across the globe consider climate to be among the top three priorities for their government
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Your support makes all the difference.Europeans focus more on curbing immigration than on climate change and less than 15% of those interviewed across the globe consider climate issues to be among the top three priorities for their government, according to a global study on Wednesday.
“Many European countries have seen a sharp rise in the share of people who say that ‘reducing immigration’ should be a top government priority,” said the study commissioned by the Denmark-based think tank Alliance of Democracies Foundation.
Germany was in the lead with 44% when it comes to people wanting their government to focus on reducing immigration, while nearly a quarter of the Germans surveyed said fighting climate change was a priority.
Globally, 33% believe climate change is one of the world’s three main challenges, but only 14% say fighting it should be among the top three priorities for their government.
Based on almost 63,000 interviews in 53 countries, the Democracy Perception Index found that 85% of those polled say that it’s important to have democracy in their country. However, governments don’t always live up to people's expectations. While 58% of respondents were satisfied with the state of democracy in their country, the remainder were not.
The study said dissatisfaction was not limited to non-democratic countries. It was also prevalent in the U.S., Europe and in other places with a long democratic tradition. In Europe, about a third of Hungarians believe they live in a democracy.
The survey was based on interviews conducted in February and April. The margin of error across all countries sampled was around 2.9 percentage points.