A majority of Australians do not view nuclear power favourably, and would be concerned if a plant was built near them, according to a new survey shared exclusively with Guardian Australia.
The new figures come as the Coalition battles to regain momentum in the final two weeks of the election campaign. The Coalition has pledged to build taxpayer-funded nuclear reactors at seven sites around Australia in a bid for more “reliable” power than could be achieved with renewables firmed by storage such as batteries and pumped-hydro, using gas as a back-up.
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The Coalition has promised a two-and-a-half-year consultation process, but some Nationals constituents have said their concerns are already being ignored and some community groups have expressed anger that they will not be able to veto plants in their area. The new survey suggests concern about nuclear power plants being built nearby is widespread.
Almost 10% were concerned when asked about the prospect of a nuclear plant being built within 50km of their homes, while 16% were very concerned and 38.8% were extremely concerned. By comparison, about 80% viewed wind and solar power favourably and the majority surveyed would not be concerned if solar or windfarms were built nearby.
The previously unpublished data was collected in December and comes from the National Climate Action Survey, conducted by researchers at Griffith and Monash universities. The survey asks more than 300 questions, such as where people get information about climate change from, whether they have been affected by natural disasters and what changes they’d be prepared to make to their behaviour.
The aim of the survey, according to associate professor Kerrie Foxwell-Norton, is to measure “the ways in which Australians are thinking about climate change and [climate] action”.
“You can see in the way that stats play out, that there’s a lot of concern around the development of a coalmine, gas site, and a nuclear power plant, as opposed to renewable sources of power,” says Foxwell-Norton.
“So people are aware of the local environmental outcomes for the development of fossil fuel energy sources as opposed to renewables.”
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In the latest survey, 84% of Australians believe the world’s climate is changing and 75% are somewhat or very worried about global warming. Foxwell-Norton says the trust in climate science has been pretty steady across the surveys.
This trust seems to cut across the political spectrum. 98% of Greens voters believe the science, as do 92% of Labor voters, 80% of Nationals, 73% of Liberal party supporters and 52% of both One Nation and United Australia supporters.
“The survey shows that the baseline of trust in scientific expertise is established in Australia. But after that, things get really complicated in terms of how Australians are responding in regional areas as opposed to metropolitan and remote areas. How people are responding based on their socioeconomic class, upon their age, their gender and so on.
“And that sort of complexity is not something to be smoothed away if we are going to seek meaningful action on climate, then we need to dig down into the complexity.”
