Maltese are biggest supporters for stricter measures to tackle climate change in EU, new survey shows

The Maltese are the people most in favour of stricter government measures which would force citizens to change their behaviour to tackle climate change in the European Union, a new blocwide survey has shown.

Results from a survey on climate change carried out by the European Investment Bank shows that a whopping 88% of Maltese are in favour of stricter government measures on climate change, especially after the Covid-19 crisis showed that citizens were willing to accept strong government measures in order to fight that crisis.

It is the highest score registered in the survey, which was held across all 27 European Union countries.

Only people surveyed in Portugal (85%), Italy (80%), Spain (79%), and Romania (77%)

came close, with the EU-wide average being 70% in favour of governments implementing stricter measures to tackle climate change.

Asked what the priority of the national government should be in order to deal with the economic crisis caused by the Covid19 pandemic, 67% of Maltese respondents said that the government should “reorient the economy, ensuring that the economic recovery clearly takes into account the needs of climate action.” The remaining 33% said that the government should “boost the economy by any means in order to return to economic growth as soon as possible.”

In terms of the sheer impact of climate change; 87% of Maltese said that climate change had an impact on their daily lives and 79% said that they believed that their own behaviour can make a difference in the fight against climate change.

The only issue is that the Maltese are pretty sure that Malta’s government is not doing enough to be at the forefront of the fight against climate change.

The survey shows that while 73% of Maltese believe that the EU is at the forefront in the fight against climate change when compared to the United States and China, only 23% of those surveyed think that Malta is also at the forefront of the fight against climate change compared with other countries.

Some scant consolation, however, is the fact that only six nations out of 27 received the thumbs up from their respective people: Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Austria, and Romania.

Asked to list the major concerns they have when it comes to climate change, 55% said that rising temperatures, particularly, in the summer, are amongst the concerns which worry them most. No other country surveyed returned a higher level of concern for this specific category than the Maltese.

Conversely, the Maltese are seemingly amongst the least worried amongst their European counterparts about a possible increase in natural disasters such as storms, floods, wildfires, and droughts. Only 49% of those surveyed listed this as a major concern – lower than the 64% bloc-wide average – and lower than all EU countries save for Latvia (47%) and Croatia (46%).

53% of Maltese were worried about damage to the natural environment which may be caused by climate change, but perhaps more notably, 25% were worried about how climate change could affect the migration situation.

Only the Czech Republic’s survey returned a larger share of the population being more worried on the latter point, with 26%.

Malta’s three biggest challenges

This statistic ties in with the answers the 200 respondents gave when they were asked what are the three biggest challenges that citizens in the country are currently facing.

The Covid-19 pandemic was perhaps unsurprisingly the most mentioned challenge: 86% of respondents named it as one of the country’s biggest challenges. The pandemic was overwhelmingly reported as the biggest challenge across all countries, with 72% of respondents across all 27 countries naming it as such.

The second most named challenge for Malta is that of migration. 56% of respondents listed migration as one of Malta’s biggest challenges – a figure which is unchallenged across the EU, perhaps indicating the strain that the island perceives itself to be facing when dealing with the migration crisis in the Mediterranean.

Only Greece, itself on the frontline of migration from the Middle East – at 44% - comes remotely close to being as concerned as the Maltese are about migration.

The third most named challenge for Malta is then that of political instability. 41% of respondents listed this as one of Malta’s biggest challenges. While the date of when this survey was conducted is not available, this may be an indicator that Malta still hasn’t quite gotten over the mass protests and political crisis that eventually saw former Prime Minister Joseph Muscat step down.

36% of respondents meanwhile listed climate change as one of Malta’s biggest challenges, followed by financial crisis (19%), unemployment (14% - the lowest out of all countries), lack of purchasing power (9%), access to healthcare and health services (4%), terrorism (2%), and cyberattacks (1%).

Breaking the data down by age demographic does reveal some further interesting trends.

For instance, youths are nowhere near as concerned as their older counterparts about migration – but conversely, older members of the public are nowhere near as concerned about potential financial crises than youths are.

While migration is one of the top concerns for 68% of those between the ages of 50 and 64, for 63% of those between the ages of 30 and 49, and for 58% of those over the age of 65 – it is a top concern for only 34% of those aged between 20 and 29, and for 31% of those aged between 15 and 19.

Meanwhile 35% of those between 20 and 29 years of age saw financial crisis as one of the chief concerns of the country. Only 12% of those between 50 and 64 years of age, and 16% of those between 30 and 49 years of age had the same thought.

This gives rise to some interesting social reflection, and throws further credence onto the belief that today’s youths are going to be the first generation to be handed a shorter end of the economic stick by the generation which they are coming after.