Climate Change and Extreme Weather Events

October 14, 2022

THIS SURVEY EXPLORES CANADIANS’ AND AMERICANS’ PERSPECTIVES ON CLIMATE CHANGE AND EXTREME WEATHER EVENTS

Our latest North American Tracker explores Canadians’ and Americans’ perspectives on climate change and extreme weather events, given the recent impact of Hurricane Fiona and Hurricane Ian in Canada and the United States.

We break down whether Canadians and Americans think climate change is caused by humans or natural phenomena, how worried they are about it, how it has impacted them and whether they think extreme weather events will be more common in the future.

Download the report for the full results.

This survey is conducted in collaboration with the Association for Canadian Studies (ACS) and published in the Canadian Press. This series of surveys is available on Leger’s website.

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CLIMATE CHANGE AND EXTREME WEATHER EVENTS

  • Canadians (70%) are more worried than Americans (58%) about climate change.
  • 21% of Canadians and 31% of Americans think climate change is caused by natural and cyclic phenomena that have nothing to do with human activity.

Opinions on Climate Change graphic

  • 56% of Canadians and 45% of Americans believe they have personally experienced the effects of climate change where they live.
  • 59% of Canadians and 47% of Americans expect to be negatively impacted (greatly or moderately) by climate change in their lifetime.
  • 60% of Canadians and 49% of Americans think extreme weather events will occur more often in the future.

METHODOLOGY

This web survey was conducted from October 7 to 10, 2022, with 1,534 Canadians and 1,000 Americans, 18 years of age or older, randomly recruited from LEO’s online panel.

A margin of error cannot be associated with a non-probability sample in a panel survey. For comparison, a probability sample of 1,534 respondents would have a margin of error of ±2.50%, 19 times out of 20, while a probability sample of 1,000 respondents would have a margin of error of ±3.09%, 19 times out of 20.

THIS REPORT CONTAINS THE RESULTS FOR THE FOLLOWING QUESTIONS AND MORE!

  • To what extent are you worried about climate change?
  • Which of the following opinions most closely matches your own?
  • In the future, do you think extreme weather events (such as wildfires, floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, droughts, etc.) will occur more often, about as often or less often than they do currently?

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