VANCOUVER—Age and political ideology are two primary indicators of Canadian opinion on the causes of climate change and whether climate change is real, according to a new poll.

The poll, released Friday by Canadian non-profit Angus Reid Institute, found on average, nine-in-ten Canadians believe global temperatures are rising. But amongst past Conservative voters, this number falls to 71 per cent, while among past Liberal and NDP voters it rises to 95 and 96 per cent, respectively.

And roughly 30 per cent of Canadians believe climate change is either the result of natural causes or is an unproven theory. But that number jumps to 56 per cent for past Conservative voters, and falls to 16 and 12 per cent amongst past Liberal and NDP voters, respectively.

Eighty-four per cent of Canadians ages 18 to 34 believe climate change poses either a serious or very serious threat to the planet, while 63 per cent of Canadians ages 35 to 54 believe the same.

And while 21 per cent of past Conservative voters disagree that global temperatures are rising, only three per cent of past Liberal or NDP voters feel the same.

The self-commissioned poll was conducted over six days at the end of October with a randomized sample of 1,500 Canadian adults, who are members of the Angus Reid Forum.

The findings come in the wake of an October report from the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which predicted a 1.5 degree C global temperature rise by as early as 2030. Such a temperature shift, the study found, would exacerbate risks to “health, livelihoods, food security, water supply, human security, and economic growth” worldwide.

And the Angus Reid poll’s findings may point to some of the motivations behind political actions on the Canadian stage, said Angus Reid Institute executive director Shachi Kurl.

Only a third of past Conservative voters reported personally trusting the UN and other international bodies for information about climate change, the poll showed — well below the Canadian average of 56 per cent.

And when federal Conservative leader Andrew Scheer speaks about action against climate change, for instance, some observers have noted his proposals lack detail, Kurl said. But this is not, she added, because he hasn’t thought the issue through.

“Why haven't we seen a lot of specifics (from Scheer)?” she asked. “Because that would put him offside with a good chunk of his base.”

The same is true of Ontario Premier Doug Ford pulling the province out of cap and trade, said Kurl. For Ford, the move is one “a large part of his base would have been demanding,” she suggested.

The more uniform agreement of parties on the left around the issue of climate change makes it easier for those parties to dig into the issue with specific policy suggestions without fear of alienating or angering a large portion of their supporters, she said.

When the issue of climate change is pulled apart politically, there is more going on than politicians taking policy stances which define them against the positions of their opponents, she said. When Conservative leaders such as Scheer, Jason Kenney and Doug Ford say they’ll fight carbon pricing, she said, “there is more than an anti-Ottawa or an anti-Liberal or an anti-Trudeau sentiment, here.

“This is something that is driven by a part of the Conservative base that carries some clout.”

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This lesson is likewise important to keep in mind for those advocates for action against climate change who may be surprised that anyone could doubt the urgency of taking action in the face of data-driven evidence like the IPCC report, she said.

“There can be a kind of conventional wisdom or consensus that this debate is over, and certainly, there is empirical data that points a certain way,” she said. “But when we look and we see that some 30 per cent of the population either believes climate change exists but it's the result of natural factors … or they see climate change as a theory that's not yet proven, it says to me that there remains some convincing to be done.”

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