Swedish politicians don’t believe in global warming either
The U.S. can often seem like something of an outlier when it comes to politicians and climate change. After all, it was major news in the campaign when Jon Huntsman tweeted that he trusts "scientists on global warming." It was such a controversial assertion that he later walked it back. But U.S. political culture on ...
The U.S. can often seem like something of an outlier when it comes to politicians and climate change. After all, it was major news in the campaign when Jon Huntsman tweeted that he trusts "scientists on global warming." It was such a controversial assertion that he later walked it back.
The U.S. can often seem like something of an outlier when it comes to politicians and climate change. After all, it was major news in the campaign when Jon Huntsman tweeted that he trusts "scientists on global warming." It was such a controversial assertion that he later walked it back.
But U.S. political culture on this issue may not actually be all that unique:
Six of ten local politicians in Sweden doubt whether human activity is to blame for global warming, a new study has found.
In addition, one out of ten municipal politicians and local government managers totally deny that the phenomenon of global warming even exists, according to a survey carried out by the Swedish Defence Research Agency (Försvarets forskningsinstitutet – FOI).
"This is clearly not good. These people feel like they don’t have to take responsibility for environmental work in their municipalities," FOI’s head of climate and energy research, Annika Carlsson-Kanyama, told the Dagens Nyheter (DN) newspaper.
The findings come from a survey carried out by FOI looking into how local decision-makers in Sweden view the issue of climate change.
Swedish politicians actually seem to be a bit more skeptical on this issue than voters. According to a 2009 Gallup Poll, 64 percent of Swedes believe climate change is caused by human activity.
Despite their green reputation, European countries don’t actually rank that high in terms of the number of citizens who believe in anthropogenic global warming. According to Gallup’s numbers, Greece and Spain are the only where over 70 percent believe it. (Maybe it’s a coastal thing?) The most accepting of climate science seem to be East Asian and South American countries.
Joshua Keating was an associate editor at Foreign Policy. Twitter: @joshuakeating
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