China's massive pollution problems have given rise to a new force of environmental campaigners, different politically from middle-class activists in the West and potentially more effective in tackling climate change, according to new research.
In Europe, financial crisis has knocked environmental policy down the political agenda and populist movements see environmentalism as a hobby of European elites. In the United States, meanwhile, the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks pushed energy security to the top of the political agenda.
But in China, 64 percent of citizens identify themselves as environmentalists, more than double the rate in Europe and the United States, a report published Wednesday by Dutch research agency Motivaction says. Motivaction interviewed more than 48,000 consumers in 20 countries about their values and behavior.