Climate, Daesh top list of global worries — poll

WASHINGTON — Climate change is a big worry in Latin America, Asia and Africa, but the Daesh terror group spells more anxiety among Europeans and North Americans, a global opinion poll released Tuesday suggests.

The Pew Research Centre in Washington said it interviewed 45,435 respondents in 40 countries to see what issues were most likely to keep them awake at night.

Sixty-one per cent in Latin America identified climate change as their biggest worry, the highest proportion of any region, said Pew in a summary of its findings.

Concern was greatest in Peru and Brazil, running at 75 per cent in both nations, it said.

Climate change was similarly the top concern for 59 per cent of Africans surveyed in nine countries, with fear expressed most frequently in Burkina Faso (79 per cent), Uganda (74 per cent) and Ghana (71 per cent).

In the Asia-Pacific region, a majority in half of the 10 countries surveyed identified climate change as the top issue, with the proportion running as high as 73 per cent in India and 72 per cent in the Philippines.

Meanwhile, Daesh was the leading worry in Europe, where 70 per cent expressed serious concern about the threat that it represents, Pew said.

Sixty-eight percent of Americans and 58 per cent of Canadians felt likewise, and Daesh was also the top concern for a majority of respondents in South Korea, Japan, Australia and Indonesia.

Fear of Daesh was shared by respondents in the Middle East, where 84 per cent of Lebanese — including 90 per cent of its Sunnis and 87 per cent of its Shiites — said they were very concerned by the group's proliferation.

Sixty-two per cent of respondents in Jordan and 54 per cent in the Palestinian territories agreed with that concern, Pew said.

The full survey, which was conducted from March 25 to March 27, appears at www.pewglobal.org.