Eurobarometer 83.4 (2015)

Since the early 1970s the European Commission´s Standard & Special Eurobarometer are regularly monitoring the public opinion in the European Union member countries. Principal investigators are the Directorate-General Communication and on occasion other departments of the European Commission or the European Parliament. Over time, candidate and accession countries were included in the Standard Eurobarometer Series. Selected questions or modules may not have been surveyed in each sample. Please consult the basic questionnaire for more information on country filter instructions or other questionnaire routing filters. In this study the following modules are included: 1. Climate change, 2. Attitudes of Europeans towards biodiversity, 3. Discrimination in the EU.<br>Topics: 1. Climate change: most important problems facing the world as a whole at the moment; assessment of the seriousness of the problem of climate change; responsible bodies for tackling climate change: national governments, European Union, regional and local authorities, business and industry, citizens, environmental groups; attitude towards the following statements: fighting climate change and more efficient use of energy can boost economy and jobs in the EU, fighting climate change is only effective if all countries of the world act together, reducing fossil fuel imports from outside the EU can benefit the EU economically, reducing fossil fuel imports from outside the EU can increase the security of EU energy supplies; personal actions taken in the last six months to fight climate change and kind of actions; importance of the national government setting targets to increase the amount of renewable energy by 2030; importance of the national government providing support for improving energy efficiency by 2030.

2. Attitudes of Europeans towards biodiversity: awareness of the term ‘biodiversity‘; self-rated knowledge about the loss of biodiversity; seriousness of the following issues: degradation and loss of natural habitats, decline and disappearance of animal and plant species, loss of benefits man gets from nature, disconnection from nature in urban areas and through modern lifestyles, negative economic impacts of biodiversity degradation; most important reasons to halt the loss of biodiversity: moral obligation, significance of biodiversity for well-being and health, importance for the production of goods, importance for the long-term economic development, indispensable to tackle climate change; seriousness of the decline and possible extinction of animal and plant species, natural habitats and ecosystems: locally, in the own country, in Europe, and globally; impact on the respondent; most important threats to biodiversity; prioritized EU measures to protect biodiversity; preferred EU measures to ensure product imports from sustainable resources; awareness of the Natura 2000 network; most important roles of nature protection areas; attitude towards prioritization of nature protection areas over economic development; personal efforts to protect biodiversity and kind of actions; activities on own balcony or in own garden: leave space for wild animals and plants, avoid using pesticides and chemicals, select plants that provide food for birds and insects, avoid introducing new plants that may become invasive.

3. Discrimination in the EU: assessment of the extent of discrimination in the own country with regard to: ethnic origin, sexual orientation, aged older than 55 years, aged younger than 30 years, religion, disability, gender identity, gender; own experience of discrimination in the last twelve months according to the above characteristics; adversely affecting characteristics of an applicant in a concurrent application situation: name, address, way of speaking, skin colour or ethnic origin, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, aged older than 55 years, aged younger than 30 years, disability, religious belief, look, physical appearance; acceptance of a person in the highest political position with the following characteristics (scale): woman, homo- or bisexual, different ethnic origin than the majority of the population, aged under 30, different religious belief, disabled, aged over 75 years, transgender or transsexual; attitude towards specific measures to foster diversity in the workplace: staff training on diversity issues, monitoring of the workforce composition to evaluate the representation of groups at risk of discrimination, monitoring of recruitment procedures to guarantee equal opportunities; sufficient efforts of the own country to fight discrimination (scale); sufficient realization of operational measures to increase diversity in the workplace; knowledge of the own rights in the case of discrimination; authority to whom a self-experienced discrimination would be reported firstly: trade unions, NGOs or associations, tribunals, national equal opportunities organisation, lawyer, police; approval of introducing new measures to raise the level of protection of groups at risk of discrimination in areas such as access to goods and services, social protection, or education; willingness to provide the following personal information on an anonymous basis as part of a census in order to fight discrimination: ethnic origin, religion, health situation, sexual orientation; adequate reflection of social diversity in the media regarding: disability, ethnic origin, religion, aged older than 75 years, aged younger than 25 years, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity; attitude towards having a colleague belonging to one of the following groups of persons: Roma, black, Asian, white, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Christian, atheist, homo- or bisexual, transgender or transsexual, disabled, aged younger than 25 years, aged older than 60 years; attitude towards the own child having a love relationship with a person belonging to one of the aforementioned groups; own country’s measures to fight the economic crisis lead to exclusion of people from the following groups: different ethnic origin than the majority of the population, different sexual orientation, aged older than 55 years, aged younger than 30 years, different religion, disabled, transgender or transsexual; attitude towards the following statements: same rights for homo- or bisexual people as for heterosexual ones, there is nothing wrong in sexual relationships between persons of the same sex, same sex marriages should be allowed throughout Europe; attitude towards the inclusion of selected aspects in school lessons and material: religion, ethnic origin, sexual orientation, gender identity; discomfort with regard to affection shown in public by the following kinds of couples: heterosexual, gay, lesbian; possibility for transsexual or transgender persons to change their civil documents in order to match inner gender identity; friendship or acquaintance with: people of different ethnic origin, Roma, homo- or bisexuals, disabled persons, persons with different religious affiliation, transsexual or transgender persons; own belonging to a minority; personal religious affiliation.

Demography: nationality; left-right self-placement; marital status; age at end of education; sex; age; occupation; professional position; type of community; household composition and household size; possession of durable goods (entertainment electronics, internet connection, possession of a car, a flat/a house have finished paying for or still paying for); financial difficulties during the last year; internet use (at home, at work, at school); self-reported belonging to the working class, the middle class or the upper class of society; life satisfaction; frequency of discussions about political matters on national, European, and local level; own voice counts in the own country and in the EU; general direction things are going in the own country and in the EU; opinion leadership; EU image.

Additionally coded was: respondent ID; country; date of interview; time of the beginning of the interview; duration of the interview; number of persons present during the interview; respondent cooperation; size of locality; region; language of the interview; nation group; weighting factor.