The first wave of the ICOS Cities ESS social survey gave an initial glimpse of the opinions in Paris and Munich regarding climate change and the policies to tackle it. A big number of respondents, more than 1200 in Munich and 800 in Paris, provided a good insight into what residents are concerned about when it comes to climate change.
The survey shows that both Paris and Munich residents have more trust in their local governments than national governments, when it comes to taking action on climate change:
“This indicates a high support for green local policies in terms of more public investment in energy, and also a support for raising taxes on fossil fuels," says Agustin Blanco Bosco, PhD Investigator at University Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona, that conducted the survey together with his team.
Correlation between survey results and air quality data
Blanco was especially surprised when comparing the satisfaction of air quality in the cities:
“We were able to compare the satisfaction with air quality in both cities to environmental data from the past years. This allowed us to see how the residents’ level of satisfaction corresponded to air quality data from the European Environment Agency. Paris residents were less satisfied than the Munich residents - and indeed, also the data showed a lower air quality for Paris than Munich between 2021 and 2022.”
The fieldwork for the third and last wave of the panel will take place in September 2024.
“We expect to have the final results from the three survey waves at the start of 2025, when we will also publicly release all the survey data and the questionnaires.”
For more information, consult the preliminary results here