英一半民衆認爲氣候變化非人爲所致

Almost half of Britons do not believe human behaviour is the main cause of global warming, a new poll showed Sunday, a day before world leaders begin crunch climate talks in Copenhagen.

The ICM survey for The Sunday Telegraph newspaper found 52 percent of respondents thought humans were largely responsible for modern day rises in temperatures, but 39 percent said climate change had not yet been proven to be man-made.

A further seven percent did not believe climate change was happening at all.

Meanwhile, 23 percent thought climate change was "the most serious problem faced by man", with 58 percent saying it was merely "one of a number of serious problems", while 17 percent said it was "not a very serious problem".

The findings are likely to concern world leaders such as Prime Minister Gordon Brown who believe an international deal in Copenhagen on cutting greenhouse gas emissions is the best way to combat climate change.

They follow a row over leaked emails from a key climate research unit at the University of East Anglia, which sparked claims that scientists were trying to suppress data which did not support the view that climate change is happening.

Some US lawmakers and a top Saudi official have said the emails undermine the science of climate change.

However, Brown this weekend said people who denied man's impact on global warming were "behind-the-times, anti-science, flat-earth climate sceptics".

ICM questioned 1,001 adults by telephone on December 2-3.
上週日公佈的一項最新民意調查顯示，近一半的英國人認爲人類行爲並非導致全球變暖的主要原因。該調查結果公佈於哥本哈根氣候峯會召開的前一天。

這項受《星期日電訊報》委託，由ICM調查機構開展的民調發現，52%的受訪者認爲人類應對氣候變暖負主要責任，但39%的受訪者稱沒有證據證明氣候變化是人爲所致。

另有7%的受訪者認爲氣候變化根本沒有發生。

同時，23%的受訪者認爲氣候變化是“人類所面臨的最嚴峻的問題”，58%的人稱氣候變化只是“諸多嚴峻問題中的其中一個”，而17%的受訪者認爲“氣候變化並沒有那麼嚴重“。

調查結果可能會讓包括戈登•布朗首相在內的各國首腦們感到擔憂，在他們看來，在哥本哈根達成一項旨在減少溫室氣體排放的國際協議是對抗氣候變化的最好辦法。

此前，英國東安格里亞大學的氣候研究中心泄露的電子郵件引發了一場爭論，有人認爲，這些泄露郵件表現出科學家們試圖抑制不支持氣候變化觀點的數據的意思。

美國一些立法者和沙特阿拉伯的一名高級官員說這些電子郵件破壞了氣候變化的科學。

然而，布朗首相在上週末表示，那些否認人類對全球變暖影響的人是“落伍的、反科學的、堅持地球平面說的氣候變化懷疑論者”。

ICM機構在12月2日至3日對1001個成年人進行了電話調查。

Vocabulary:

crunch: to perform operations on; manipulate or process 進行

row:a boisterous disturbance or quarrel 吵架；公開爭論