Questão 58 - CEFSA Conhecimentos Gerais 2023/1

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Do men and women think about climate change differently?

 

    The disastrous effects of climate change are plain to see: in July 2022, devastating wildfires have torn through large areas of Europe and heatwaves have killed more than 1,000 people in Portugal and Spain. However, attitudes towards climate change vary significantly. A recent study found that two factors can predict concern about the warming world: GDP (Gross Domestic Product)¹ and gender.

    Sarah Bush and Amanda Clayton, two political scientists, drew on nine cross-national surveys and focus groups that together covered more than 100 countries between 2010 and 2021. First, they found that people surveyed in poorer countries rated climate change as a more serious problem than those in wealthier countries. They were also more likely to respond that they expect to be personally affected by a changing climate. That is hardly surprising. Poorer countries tend to be less prepared and thus more vulnerable to extreme weather, such as heatwaves and floods.

    The more peculiar finding was how people’s gender correlated with their responses. Most people, of any gender, recognise that climate change is a threat. In spite of that, in more wealthy countries men were more likely than women to answer that they were not concerned about it. Take America. In one survey by Pew Research Centre, 20% of men said that climate change is “not a problem”, while only 8% of women agreed. But as GDP per person decreases, the gap between men and women narrows. In Britain, the world’s fifth-largest economy, 11% of men answered that they were not concerned about climate change compared with 4% of women. The gap narrowed further still in South Africa, to a difference of just two percentage points. In Uganda, one of the world’s poorest countries, the pattern narrowly reversed: 2.4% of the women surveyed said that they were not concerned about climate change, compared with only 1.7% of men.

    The reasons for this gap are complex and highly dependent on variables in rich and poor countries. The gap in wealthy countries persisted among men and women regardless of their level of education, household income or political views — so these characteristics alone do not explain the difference. Climate concern in wealthy countries dropped especially dramatically among men. Studies have found that men in rich countries have a bigger carbon footprint than women, so they may feel they have more to lose from policies that limit emissions. Indeed the authors found that men surveyed in wealthy countries were 50% more likely than women to say that they feared financial costs of green policies. Even if this is the case, ignoring the risks of climate change is dangerously insensitive. The consequences for everyone of a warming world will be far more painful.

(www.economist.com, 22.07.2022. Adaptado.)

 

¹GDP (Gross Domestic Product): equivale, em português, ao PIB (Produto Interno Bruto). O PIB mede a atividade econômica de um país.

A frase do quarto parágrafo que critica os homens de países ricos por sua visão sobre a mudança climática é