OTTAWA - Most Canadians still want aggressive government action to fight climate change, in spite of skyrocketing fuel costs, a new poll suggests.
The Canadian Press Harris-Decima findings appear to fly in the face of the notion that Canadians, shocked by record-high oil and gasoline prices, won't stomach environmental policies that drive up their cost of living even further.
The poll results were published Tuesday as leaders from the Group of Eight industrialized nations, including Canada, issued seemingly conflicting declarations at their meeting in Japan.
One statement endorsed cutting the world's emissions of greenhouse gases in half by 2050, while another called on oil-rich states to ramp up production to reduce fuel prices.
The survey indicates many Canadians profess to want environmental actions that push the country toward greener, alternative sources of energy -- regardless of cost.
Respondents were given two options: Did they support a more cautious policy approach "so that we don't drive up the cost of fuel and the cost of living even further?'' Or would they subscribe to the view that "the rising price of fossil fuels is a reason we must move even more aggressively to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels. . . .''
Sixty-one per cent said an aggressive approach was more logical, while just 27 per cent said governments should move more slowly in light of the rising costs of oil and gasoline.
Environmental advocates cited the survey as yet another indication that Canadian popular opinion is outpacing more cautious politicians when it comes to climate change.
"It confirms for me that . . . Canadians know we are living in a time of climate chaos,'' Beatrice Olivastri, CEO of the environmental group Friends of the Earth, said Tuesday.
"The plans to date by the government are woefully inadequate.''
At the G8 summit in Hokkaido, Prime Minister Stephen Harper heralded the leaders' climate-change statement as a major breakthrough in getting the United States and Russia to accept long-term cuts to carbon emissions.
But the declaration isn't binding, meaning none of the G8 countries -- Canada, the United States, Japan, Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Russia -- would be required to halve their emissions by mid-century.
That's a huge disappointment to environmentalists, who were hoping for hard targets for reducing emissions.
"As the heads of eight of the world's biggest economies, the G8 leaders could have used their summit to give real momentum to the UN negotiations on a global climate deal,'' Arthur Sandborn from Greenpeace said in a statement on behalf of Climate Action Network Canada.
"Clearly, the G8's leaders still have not grasped the urgency of combating climate change.''
The Harris-Decima survey of just more than 1,000 Canadians conducted July 3-6 found majority support for more aggressive environmental action spanned all regions, income groups, ages and genders.
The telephone poll is considered accurate within plus or minus 3.1 percentage points, 19 times in 20.
Four of five supporters of the Green Party favoured moving more quickly, the most in the poll. But even in oil-rich, Conservative-heartland Alberta, 59 per cent of respondents rejected the premise that rising fuel prices should slow the costly push for greener fuel alternatives.
The poll also asked whether Canada should increase its use of nuclear energy to combat rising oil-and-gas prices, while curbing greenhouse-gas emissions.
Nearly a third of respondents, or 29 per cent, said they preferred increasing nuclear energy use while 34 per cent favoured less use of the power source. Roughly a quarter of those asked said Canada should neither increase nor decrease its nuclear power-generating capacity in the future.
Harris-Decima asked respondents to choose which of two statements most closely represented their views:
- "Some people say that the high cost of oil and gasoline is a reason why we should take a slower, more cautious approach to dealing with environmental issues such as climate change, so that we don't drive up the cost of fuel and the cost of living even further.''
- "Others say that the rising price of fossil fuels is a reason we must move even more aggressively to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels and find alternative sources of energy that are also less damaging to the environment.''
