Opinion Poll: Support for 45 per cent climate targets and emissions trading

Polling done by Essential vision shows that most people approve the higher climate targets and the proposed Emissions Trading Scheme in Labor's climate plan. The polling was published on May 3 and supports previous polling in March that a majority of Australians want greater action on climate change.

The survey found that 57 per cent of voting age people approved of the Labor Party’s higher climate targets that more closely match the science and carbon emissions policy. Just 21 per cent disapproved of these targets and implementation of an ETS.


Those more likely to approve were Labor voters (76 per cent), Greens voters (88 per cent) and young voters aged 18-34 (70 per cent). Those more likely to disapprove were Liberal/National voters (44 per cent) and voters aged 55+ (39 per cent).

The Question:
Q. The Labor Party recently announced their policy to tackle climate change which includes a target of reducing Australia’s carbon emissions by 45% by 2030 (compared to the Coalition Government’s target of 26-28%) and introducing an emissions trading scheme. Do you approve or disapprove of this policy?



See Essential Vision Poll results.

Poll: Most Australians want more climate action this election

An Essential opinion poll published on 15 March shows that 57 per cent of voting aged people think Australia is not doing enough to address climate change. This is up 4 per cent since the last survey in August 2015. Just 21 per cent (down 3 per cent) think Australia is doing enough. Younger people aged 18-34 (66 per cent) and university educated (64 per cent) think Australia is not doing enough.

Even 38 per cent of Liberal voters think Australia is not doing enough, 2 per cent more than those saying that enough is being done.

The essential poll survey on March 15 also showed that 63 per cent of voting age people believe that there is fairly conclusive evidence that climate change is happening and caused by human activity. This is up 7 per cent since the previous survey in November 2015. There is a long term increase in this concern as shown in my graph of the data below. Those aged under 35 are likely agree with human caused climate change by a 70 per cent to 18 per cent split. Voters aged 55 and older are much more evenly divided on the issue with a 48 per cent to 46 per cent split.



See a breakdown by voting party allegiance of who is more likely to not believe in human caused climate change below.



An earlier poll published on 1st March showed that climate change was rated as the 10th most important election issue.