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Wolfgang Hasselmann via Unsplash
With this pilot study, we aimed to explore the possibility of creating a panel of experts inside political and policymaking “bubbles” regarding European policy issues on energy and climate change, and track evolution over time.
To this aim, a pilot study on attitudes towards climate change, energy, and related policies was conducted by the University of Siena in Italy. In early (wave 1) and late (wave 2) 2024, 3031 experts in Belgium and France were invited to complete a 10-minute online questionnaire. Wave 1 had 135 participants, with 74 of those also participating in Wave 2. The vast majority of respondents were from education & research or business.
The results illustrate that creating a stable expert panel on climate change issues is difficult due to low response rates (5% in our pilot study). Nevertheless, in this relatively small dataset, the following trends over time were observed:
- The perceived influence of climate change on voters has decreased over time (from early to late 2024), whereas the influence of defense and security has increased.
- The share that believes that governments should do more to address climate change has increased.
- Support for increased investment in onshore wind has increased over time among the respondents.
- Support for pink and especially green hydrogen is high, whereas support for blue hydrogen is rather low and has decreased over time.