Ireland has urban-rural divide in attitudes to climate change, new survey shows

Large-scale moves to electric and hybrid vehicles means that, despite there being 400,000 more private cars on the roads in 2022 compared with 2010, direct greenhouse gas emissions from those vehicles were 11% lower than those seen 12 years prior, CSO data shows.

An Irish rural-urban divide in terms of attitudes to climate change and a stark outline of how gas prices have exploded even as consumption has fallen are among the insights into the climate crisis provided by CSO data.

While climate change is “certainly” an issue that the public are concerned about, that concern is not evenly split across geographies and age ranges, Deirdre Mahony, assistant director general with the CSO, said.