REGINA — Only two per cent of Canadians who responded to a new opinion poll believed climate change is not occurring.
A further nine per cent believed climate change is occurring naturally and 54 per cent felt both humans and Mother Nature are playing a role.
The findings are in a survey by Insightrix Research for IPAC-CO2 Research Inc., a University-of-Regina-based centre that studies carbon capture and storage.
Centre chief executive Carmen Dybwad said the results released Wednesday show Canadians overwhelmingly believe climate change is real.
“When you say that 98 per cent of people believe this, I mean the kind of frivolous answer would be like two per cent still believe that there are little green spacemen around. I mean two per cent believing that climate change isn’t occurring is pretty significant,” said Dybwad.
“No, you’re never going to have 100 per cent ever.”
The online poll of 1,550 respondents was done between May 29 and June 11.
There were five options given to the question: “Where do you stand on the issue of climate change?” Respondents were asked to choose whether climate change is occurring partially due to human activity and partially due to natural climate variation; climate change is occurring due to human activity; climate change is occurring due to natural climate variation; climate change is not occurring at all; or not sure.
Nine per cent believed climate change is occurring due to natural climate variations. Almost one-third — 32 per cent — of respondents said they believed climate change is happening because of human activity. More than half of those who responded — 54 per cent — said they believed it’s a combination of both.
Two per cent said they didn’t believe climate change is occurring at all. Four per cent were not sure.