Sixty per cent of respondents want to see more action – compared with 51% in March

An increasing proportion of voters worry Australia is not doing enough to reduce the risks of climate change, and more people see a direct link between warming and bushfires, according to the latest Guardian Essential poll.

Ominously for the Morrison government, which bristles at regular public criticism it is not doing enough to reduce the risks of the climate crisis, 60% of the sample of 1,083 voters believes Australia should be doing more. This is up from 51% in March.

Just under half the sample, 43%, believes it is likely bushfires are linked to climate change, and argues it is entirely appropriate to discuss that link during an emergency of the scale we’ve seen around Australia over the past fortnight. When this question was last put to survey respondents in 2013, only 27% of the sample had this view.

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While Scott Morrison has accepted the link between climate change and natural disasters, the prime minister has argued – including in parliament on Monday during a statement on the bushfires – that it is not appropriate to get into that debate while a disaster is in progress.

The Labor leader, Anthony Albanese, responded to Morrison’s comments on Monday by arguing Australia does not have the luxury of time to defer important discussions. But Albanese said it was important that public discussion of the issues be “sober” and not rancorous.

Voters most likely to think Australia is not doing enough to deal with the risk of climate change are under 34, and support Labor or the Greens – although the latest Guardian Essential survey indicates that 46% of Coalition voters in the sample share this view.

The poll indicates that 61% of the sample believes that climate change is happening and is caused by human activity. That level of support is consistent with readings taken in March this year and October of last year. While that view is supported by 74% of Labor voters in the sample and 89% of Greens voters, it is supported by just under half of Coalition voters, 47%.

Just over a quarter of the sample (28%) says people aren’t witnessing climate change, they are witnessing a normal fluctuation in the Earth’s climate. Perceptions are different depending on the age of voters. People aged 18-34 are most likely to accept anthropogenic climate change (74%) and voters over 55 are least likely to (50%).

A separate poll of 25,000 Australians aged 15 to 19, released on Tuesday, shows a sharp rise in concern for the environment and climate change in both cities and regional areas.

As part of the 18th annual Mission Australia youth survey, people were asked to name the three most important issues for Australia. Behind mental health, the environment was ranked the second most important issue, chosen by 34% of young people, with more than half of those citing climate change. In 2018, the environment was ranked eighth, nominated by just 9% of young people.

The chief executive of Mission Australia, James Toomey, said young people were feeling disenfranchised and this was driving them to find other ways to be heard “such as climate strikes.”

He said: “The growing public dialogue and experience of issues, such as extreme weather events and drought, are clearly affecting young people’s view of the world.”

Bushfires and climate change

Essential said the proportion of people who think it is likely that the bushfires are linked to climate change, but that it is inappropriate to publicly raise this issue during disasters, has remained fairly constant over time. In this fortnight’s poll, 17% of the sample express that view while 14% had that opinion in 2013.

Morrison defended the Coalition’s record on climate action during question time on Monday. He contended that Australia was in that group of countries which is “beating, the commitments that we have made to the world, and we will continue to do that”.

“Australia is doing its bit when it comes to dealing with climate change,” the prime minister said. But he said the government had no intention of adopting “reckless targets supported by the Greens and the Labor party”.

The prime minister said it was an “outright lie” to argue that if the Coalition had adopted higher emissions reduction targets then the bushfires would not have happened.

While Australia has committed under the Paris agreement to reduce emissions, pollution has risen consistently since the Coalition repealed the carbon price shortly after winning government in 2013.

In an interview with Guardian Australia’s politics podcast last week, the former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull cut across Morrison’s regular protestations that enough is being done by noting that Australia would struggle to meet its Paris emissions target without rapid decarbonisation of the energy sector.

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Turnbull also said the Liberal party’s continuing failure to develop a coherent climate and energy policy was costing the country much-needed new investment in power generation.

There has been controversy post-election about the reliability of opinion polling, as none of the major surveys – Newspoll, Ipsos, Galaxy or Essential – correctly predicted a Coalition victory on 18 May. The polls instead projected Labor in front on a two-party-preferred vote of 51-49 and 52-48.

The lack of precision in the polling has prompted public reflection at Essential, as has been flagged by its executive director, Peter Lewis.

Guardian Australia is not now publishing measurements of primary votes or a two-party-preferred calculation, but is continuing to publish survey results of responses to questions about the leaders and a range of policy issues.

The poll’s margin of error is plus or minus 3%.