A new public opinion poll finds global warming appears to be a more urgent concern in California than it is in other major industrialized nations.
The Public Policy Institute of California polled more than 1,700 people in an effort to see what they think about global warming.
Researches were hoping to gauge how local views about global warming compare to other industrial nations.
"California is really a leader in terms of concern about global climate change — 57 percent of Californians said that global climate change is a very serious problem," said Mark Baldasarre, the institute's president and CEO.
Approximately 55 percent of French and German residents polled also said climate change is a very serious problem. The number in Japan was 43 percent and in Russia a third expressed serious concern, according to the survey.
California residents have consistently supported the state's efforts to address the issue — 45 percent of those polled think efforts to fight global warming will create jobs.
"Most Californians believe that our state's efforts to reduce global warming will result in more jobs for people around the state in the future — 45 percent said more jobs," Baldasarre said. "Nineteen percent said that they felt what we were doing to reduce global warming in California would result in fewer jobs."
Politics had an influence on the results, Baldasarre said.
People who identified themselves as Democrats were more likely to consider global warming a serious issue than those who self identified as Republicans, according to the report.
California Gov. Jerry Brown, a Democrat, has made taking steps to cut global warming a key part of his political agenda. In July, Brown met with the pope to talk about climate change and this month is attending the U.N. Conference on Climate Change in Paris.
