October 2022
Featured in this insight: Climate change & environment, Oil & gas
Nearly two-thirds of EU citizens believe transition away from fossil fuels should be accelerated: A survey of European Union citizens has found that nearly two-thirds (66%) believe that following the impact of the war against Ukraine on oil and gas prices, the EU should move towards a green transition at an accelerated pace and reduce its consumption of fossil fuels.
The 2022–2023 EIB Climate Survey by the European Investment Bank (EIB) found that Croatia were most in favour of reducing fossil fuel consumption, with eight in ten wanting to see the green transition sped up (81%), followed by Italy (77%) and Hungary (77%).
However, just over a third of EU citizens said that the bloc should slow down the green transition to secure energy availability in the short term (34%).
Just over half of the German citizens polled agreed that the green transition should be accelerated by reducing fossil fuels (54%), while 46% said that the green transition should be slowed down in the short term to secure energy availability.
When asked what the priority was for Germany, respondents said it should be to diversify supplies to avoid dependence (39%), followed by expanding renewables (38%), whilst almost a quarter said a priority should be reducing the energy use of people and businesses (23%).
While two in five EU citizens polled (41%) said that climate change was one of the three greatest challenges people in their country are facing, German citizens were the most concerned of all EU nations, found the survey, with 57% saying the same.
The research found that six in ten German people (62%) are in support of heavily taxing energy consumption that is heavily impactful to the environment such as SUVs and air transport, and 65% in support of reducing motorway speed limits.
View more of our sector specific insights: Climate change & environment, Oil & gas
