In recent years, protests, demonstrations and actions for climate protection have attracted increased attention. In particular, the handling of more radical forms of protest has been discussed. The focus of this analysis is on how high the acceptance of non-peaceful means in the fight for climate protection is among the population. How widespread are radical attitudes, such as the acceptance of violence, in society? The Konrad Adenauer Foundation surveyed these potentials in a study on diversity of opinion in an open society. To this end, the USUMA opinion research institute randomly selected and surveyed a total of 5,511 people on our behalf between December 2021 and April 2022.

Some key findings of our study are:

• Radical attitudes toward climate protection are widespread at a low level (7 percent).
• People with a tendency toward radical attitudes on climate protection have an increased acceptance of violence compared to the population average. In particular, violence against objects is tolerated more often.
• Among the group tending toward radical attitudes, fear of climate change is particularly high. In (climate) politics, the group prefers to cooperate and seek compromises. The group's trust in political institutions is in line with the population average. The opinion that compromises prevent solutions is only held by a small, though above-average, proportion.

Read the entire study "Radical climate activism. Representative survey on the prevalence of radical attitudes on the issue of climate protection” here as PDF.

Please note, to date the study is only available in German.