 
December 10, 2009
In Brief:
Media Release - Poll: Postpone Copenhagen Treaty73% of Canadians favour waitingWinnipeg: The Frontier Centre for Public Policy today released a COMPAS poll which shows most Canadians prefer to hold off on signing a global warming treaty in Copenhagen; reasons include concern over the economy and doubts about the sureness of the science. In practice, few Canadians oppose signing such a treaty under any circumstance (14%) while few also favour going ahead with it (25%), as shown in table 1.
The largest cluster (51%) favours postponement of signing--either until we can be more confident that the global economy is coming out of recession (25%) or that there is strong agreement that the scientific research attributing climate change to humans is fully objective (26%).
Thus, among Canadians with an opinion on the issue, 73% favour postponing a decision (57%) or not signing at all (16%) while 28% advocate signing a treaty at Copenhagen.
“Some doubt about when the global economy will recover from the recession and some doubt about the scientific arguments behind the push for a treaty on global warming are the chief drivers in causing Canadians to want the federal government to postpone signing a treaty,” observed Conrad Winn, president of COMPAS and principal investigator on the poll.
The poll was conducted across Canada on November 28, 2009; sample size was 1,000 and is deemed accurate to within approximately three percentage points, 19 times out of 20.
To download a complete copy of the COMPAS poll and questions, click here
For more information and to arrange an interview with the study's author, media (only) should contact: Mark Milke – Research Director Frontier Centre for Public Policy
is an independent public policy think tank whose mission is "to broaden the debate on our future through public policy research and education and to explore positive changes within our public institutions that support economic growth and opportunity." |
The Frontier Centre for Public Policy 
