Public opinion polling on coal in Australia

There has been relatively little publicly available public opinion polling on coal in Australia.

Network Ten July 2011 poll
In July 2011 Network Ten commissioned EMC to add a question on the coal industry to its regular opinion poll. The question was "Do you agree or disagree that Australia’s coal industry should be phased out by 2050?". EMC summarised the response as "Respondents were nearly evenly split over whether Australia’s coal industry should be phased out by 2050 – 37% agreed and 39% disagreed. Highest levels of agreement were shown by Greens voters (66%), Labor voters (47%) and those aged under 35 (40%). Highest levels of disagreement were shown by Liberal/National voters (53%) and those aged 55+ (51%)."

Climate Institute polling
In July 2012 the Climate Institute released the results of an online survey and focus group market research of Australians on climate science and policy. In one question, respondents were asked to nominate their three preferred and three least preferred sources of electricity generation. Solar was the most preferred (81% in favour, least preferred by 6%), wind (59% in favour, least preferred by 13%) and hydro (44% in favour, least preferred by 11%). The three least preferred sources of electricity were biomass (52% least preferred, 8% most preferred), coal (66% least preferred, most preferred by 14%) and nuclear (least preferred by 64% and most preferred by 20%).

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