Europe UK (Commonwealth Union) – A study conducted over a few years recently indicated that public concerns regarding climate change were linked to lower support for natural gas as an alternative fuel source.
Individuals concerned about climate change had an increased chance of opposing natural gas extraction, which is regularly promoted as a relatively clean way of lowering emissions, according to researchers.
Researchers discovered that the level to which individuals believed climate change to be serious and evidence on the reliability of climate change determined the significance of their opinions regarding natural gas production.
University of Stirling experts played a role in the design of a questionnaire of a thousand individuals within the UK who were surveyed in April 2019. The same questions were repeated every year for 4 years.
The group were queried as to what extent they felt climate change is significant, as well as the level to which they thought the evidence on climate change was dependable.
They were further instructed to express their opinion on natural gas extractions in the UK. The surveyed respondents provided their views about offshore gas extraction through drilling beneath the seabed, traditional onshore drilling, as well as fracking, together with gas recovery from shale rock.
“As the UK progresses its journey to net zero, understanding how people’s beliefs about climate change are related to their support or opposition to natural gas extraction in the UK can help provide a valuable insight into how the public may react to government energy policies involving the continued use of fossil fuels,” explained Dr Jen Dickie, the lead of the University of Stirling team for the project.
As public concerns surrounding environmental concerns continue grows stronger the urge to make the shift to greener alternative energy sources is likely to further intensify, however there is much concern by critics on the feasibility of the rapid transformation towards greener alternatives particularly in regards to the amount of energy generated by greener alternatives.
