The EPA-Yale Climate Opinion Maps of Ireland show how climate change beliefs, risk perceptions, and policy support vary at the county and regional levels. The maps are based on the Climate Change in the Irish Mind study (CCIM), a nationally representative survey collected from May through July of 2021. Climate Change in the Irish Mind is a baseline study of the Irish people’s beliefs, attitudes, policy preferences and behaviours regarding climate change.
Public opinion about climate change has an important influence on decision making about policies to reduce climate change or prepare for the impacts, but opinions can vary widely depending on where people live. So why would we rely on just one national number to understand public responses to climate change at the sub-national level?
Public opinion polling is generally done at the national level because local level polling is very costly and time intensive. Our team of scientists, however, has developed a geographic and statistical model to downscale national public opinion results to the county and regional levels. We can now estimate public opinion across the country, revealing much more detail about regional variation in Ireland’s beliefs, attitudes, and policy support.
The CCIM national level survey shows that 96% of Irish people think climate change is happening. The model estimates from the EPA-Yale Climate Opinion Maps for Ireland show that there is a correspondingly high degree of homogeneity across the country on this issue. The high levels of belief that climate change is happening vary very little across counties.
Explore the maps by clicking on your county or region and compare the results across questions and with other geographic areas. Beneath each map are bar charts displaying the results for every question at whichever geographic scale is currently selected.
See the methodology page for more information about uncertainty estimates. In some cases, numbers that should sum to 100% or differences from the national average that should sum to zero are off by a percentage point; these effects are due to rounding of figures.
This research was undertaken by the Irish Environmental Protection Agency and the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication in support of the National Dialogue on Climate Action. The findings of this work will be used to inform and support national communications on climate change. It will also be used by climate policy and decision makers, the research community, media and the non-governmental sector.
For further questions about these maps or what they mean, please see our Frequently Asked Questions.
