We live in a climate crisis. Climate change will be the most dominant factor in our lives if it already has not been. Polar bears can’t do much to stop further climate change, but we, humans, can do a lot.

We witness the increasing frequency and severity of extreme weather events every year. Already in this new year, the United States and Europe suffered from the intense cold waves. The frigid conditions attributed to climate change disrupted transportation, strained energy resources and posed significant risks to people, especially the vulnerable.

Thus, it is no wonder that extreme weather events topped the list of imminent global risks for the coming 10 years by the World Economic Forum’s Global Risk Report 2024.

There are a number of globally important elections scheduled this year, and climate change will be one of the major election campaign issues, including the European Parliament election in June and the U.S. presidential election in November.

A recent unprecedented nationwide survey in Korea also
revealed that the political parties and candidates need to pay more attention to their climate action pledges in the general elections in April.

On Jan. 22, Climate Politics Baram – baram means wind in Korean, a collaboration of the Institute of Green Transition, the Possibility Lab and Local Energy Lab, disclosed the result of the Climate Crisis Perception Survey.

The survey was conducted among 17,000 voters in 17 provinces in December last year. It was aimed at understanding voters’ awareness of the climate crisis and their thoughts on climate policies ahead of the general elections in April.

The respondents ranked the population crisis, the climate crisis and the energy crisis as the top three serious challenges ahead. However, when asked to select the top three areas among the election pledges in order of importance, the respondents chose revitalizing the economy, strengthening welfare, and political reform. Climate action was ranked fifth.

Nearly half of the respondents, 48.8 percent, said that a net
-zero carbon policy would be bad for local industries in the short term but good in the long term. The most popular options for financing climate change response were “new carbon tax,” 37.8 percent, and “new wealth tax,” 29.6 percent. Furthermore, the most popular way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from electricity generation is to expand renewable energy, 59.1 percent.

More than half of the respondents also favored limiting vehicle registration, 56.6 percent, and halting sales of new internal combustion vehicles, 63.8 percent. Combining the top two priority policies to reduce carbon emissions in the transportation sector, 62.0 percent of women and 56.7 percent of men surveyed ranked expanding public transportation routes and vehicles as the top priority.

More interestingly, nearly two-thirds of the respondents, 62.3 percent, said they would be more likely to vote for a candidate who emphasizes climate action in the general elections in April. In particular, 60.5 percent and 62.5 percent would consider
voting for a candidate or a party with different political views if they liked their commitment to climate action.

Based on the survey results, 33.5 percent of the respondents are identified as “climate voters” by the Climate Politics Baram, assessing climate information awareness, climate crisis sensitivity, and climate voting propensity.

By region, climate voters were most likely to be found in Jeonnam, 38.1 percent, Seoul, 36.3 percent, Daejeon, 34.3 percent, and Gwangju, 34.1 percent. By age and gender, men were more likely to be climate voters than women in the 30 or older age group, but women outnumbered men by 2.0 percent in the 18 to 29 age group.

Unlike in the past, major political parties now seem to have climate change as one of the election campaign issues. Both the opposition Democratic Party of Korea and the Green Justice Party have recruited climate change experts as their first candidates. Not as the first one, but the ruling People Power Party also recruited a climate change expert as its
candidate.

Regardless of whether a few climate change experts actually become members of the parliament or not, the party with the majority, as well as the 300 newly elected members of the 22nd National Assembly, will play a key role in the Korean climate policies and legislation in parallel with the incumbent Yoon administration.

After all, what changes politicians is voters. As 63.6 percent of the above survey respondents provided negative feedback to the 21st National Assembly on climate action, if we want ambitious climate action by the new assembly, we need to act constantly, especially more action after the election compared to before and during the election.

Politicians and governmental leaders will know our climate priorities only if we, together with more and more people, tell them, monitor them, question them and pressure them.

Source: Yonhap News Agency