Less than half the population believes that human activity is to blame for global warming, according to an exclusive poll for The Times.

The revelation that ministers have failed in their campaign to persuade the public that the greenhouse effect is a serious threat requiring urgent action will make uncomfortable reading for the Government as it prepares for next month's climate change summit in Copenhagen.

Only 41 per cent accept as an established scientific fact that global warming is taking place and is largely man-made. Almost a third (32 per cent) believe that the link is not yet proved; 8 per cent say that it is environmentalist propaganda to blame man and 15 per cent say that the world is not warming.

Tory voters are more likely to doubt the scientific evidence that man is to blame. Only 38 per cent accept it, compared with 45 per cent of Labour supporters and 47 per cent of Liberal Democrat voters.

The high level of scepticism underlines the difficulty the Government will have in persuading the public to accept higher green taxes to help to meet Britain's legally binding targets to cut carbon emissions by 34 per cent by 2020 and 80 per cent by 2050.

The recession appears to have made tackling climate change less of a priority for many people. Only just over a quarter (28 per cent) think that it is happening and is "far and away the most serious problem we face as a country and internationally", while just over half (51 per cent) think it is "a serious problem, but other problems are more serious".

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Vicky Pope, head of climate change advice at the Met Office, said that growing awareness of the scale of the problem appeared to be resulting in people taking refuge in denial.

"Being confronted with the possibility of higher energy bills, wind farms down the road and new nuclear power stations encourages people to question everything about climate change," she said. "There is a resistance to change and some people see the problem being used as an excuse to charge them more taxes."

It's amazing how people can self-rationalise themselves out of uncomfortable truths and find somebody or something else to blame.  It's environmentalists or politicians on the make; an excuse for more taxes; and in any case, what can be more important than jobs at a time of recession and high unemployment?

All politics is local, and it also tends to be very short term in its focus.  How do you persuade people to think 5, 10, 20 years down the road when they are concerned about their job or security now?  Individual personal advantage will always trump the collectively long term good even when there is generalised agreement on what would constitute a good long term policy.  Or will it?

I was struck by how 86% of Danish Windmills are owned by local wind farm cooperatives with hundreds of thousands of local shareholders - thus overcoming both the NIMBY factor, and ensuring that the majority of the population has a stake in such development.

Putting the primary focus on carbon taxes associates the Climate Change issue with partisan issues such as higher taxes generally, the level and quality of state expenditure, and state "interference" with personal "freedom". Of course many on the left do not have such a problem with those issues, but we do not want Climate Change to become exclusively a left wing issue.

So perhaps proposals to enhance carbon neutrality should also seek to be tax neutral, and any money raised by carbon taxes used directly to fund the reduction of the price of electricity created by sustainable sources.  Taxes may well have to be raised to fund the fall-out from the financial crisis - but let us not allow our politicians to use the Climate Change issue to provide political cover for the inevitable unpopularity those taxes will give rise to.

Climate change and carbon taxes are not some cash cow to fund the depredations of our financial industries and the havoc they have created in our economies. If we allow that linkage to develop, Climate Change will come to be seen by many as just one more global conspiracy to squeeze the little guy while the bankers and high rollers go off scot free.