Most Canadians think climate change is the planet's defining crisis which demands immediate action, a new poll released Monday suggests.

The Harris-Decima poll conducted on behalf of the Munk Debates asked Canadians if they agreed or disagreed with a resolution to be debated Tuesday during the fourth Munk Debate in Toronto, that: "Climate change is mankind's defining crisis, and demands a commensurate response."

As a result, nearly two thirds of Canadians agreed while 31 percent disagreed.

"I think it shows the extent to which not just the environment, but the actual issue of climate change, has ascended up the public agenda to point where it is reminiscent of those other big causes that have shaped a lot of Canadian history," Rudyard Griffiths, co-organizer of the Munk Debates, told reporters in Ottawa.

The survey also found a strong belief on both sides of the climate-change debate that there is a moral responsibility to deal with global warming now to save the planet future generations.

There was also general agreement on both sides that a warming planet threatens species and ecologies around the world with extinction, and that scientists are on the same page that something needs to be done about climate change.

The online poll of 1,009 Canadians was conducted Nov. 12 to 15.

The United Nations climate change conference is taking place early December in Copenhagen, Denmark, to negotiate a successor treaty to the Kyoto agreement.