Canadians More Likely than Americans to Believe in Climate Change?

More Canadians than Americans believe climate change is real, according to two surveys of public opinion on climate change commissioned by the Public Policy Forum and Sustainable Prosperity.

Their findings indicate that belief in climate change among Canadians outpaces that among residents of the United States.

In Canada, 80 per cent believe in the science behind climate change, according to the survey results, compared with 58 per cent in the United States.

Taking it a step further, 65 percent of Canadians believe the government has a role to play in addressing climate change; whereas only 43 per cent of Americans feel that way.

The poll also shows 73 percent of Canadians surveyed are willing to pay to address climate change. Canadians demonstrate a higher degree of support for both cap and trade policies and carbon taxes than the American public. Only 55 percent of Americans in the survey support such measures.

In fact, a majority of Canadians respondents are willing to pay up to $50 a month in extra energy costs to address the issue.

The United States survey was conducted by the Muhlenberg College Institute of Public Opinion in Allentown, Pennsylvania and funded by both Muhlenberg College and the Center for Local, State, and Urban Policy at the Gerald Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan.

The Canadian survey was conducted by Leger Marketing in Montréal Québec and was funded by the Public Policy Forum and Sustainable Prosperity, with additional financial support from Internat Energy Solutions Canada.

For more on the survey: Sustainable Prosperity

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O, Canada! There's an Important Election Up North, Too, for Clean Tech

Image by Getty Images via DaylifeFor Canadian Thanksgiving (and because I'm busy with consulting work today and it's a holiday here in the States), I'm going to reblog one of my favorites Canadians Tyler Hamilton's assessment of the Canadian political race (they vote for Prime Minister tomorrow) and the prospects for cleantech and action on climate change.

Tyler recommends Canadian voters choose Liberal Party candidate Stéphane Dion over Conservative incumbent Stephen Harper or even the Green Party, which found some candidates backing out or even backing Dion.

In Tyler's opinion, Dion represents the best hope for clean energy and infrastructure development in the North Country. Read his full column in the Toronto Star (link here or below) for details.

Happy Thanksgiving, Canada! The world can be a crazy place, but we do — in the big picture — have much to be thankful for. Enjoy the time with family and friends, and a week of turkey dinner leftovers.

Today I’ll just post a link to my Clean Break column, which argues that green-minded Canadians heading to the polls tomorrow would be best to vote for the federal Liberals if they hope to see any action on climate change and development of a cleaner, more energy-efficient economy. Now is the time to begin taxing pollution and using that money to tackle poverty, stimulate the economy, and ultimately help Canadian households and businesses operate more efficiently, while at the same time accelerating green innovation that could serve us at home and others abroad.

From the perspective of a green-technology advocate, one could just as easily support the Green Party and, to a lesser extent, NDP on this issue, but the Liberals are the most likely to defeat the federal Conservatives, which have proven in their two years of power that they don’t take green job creation or climate change seriously. This is an important federal election, coming at a time when even the U.S. is likely to vote in a new president — i.e. Obama — who has declared energy and green-economy building as his top priority. -- Tyler Hamilton, Clean Break

Tyler is senior technology reporter and columnist for the Toronto Star, Canada's largest daily newspaper. His bi-weekly column, Clean Break, is the basis of a blog of the same name that discusses trends, happenings and innovators in the cleantech market.

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