Public opinion on climate change
Public opinion on climate change is related to a broad set of variables, including the effects of sociodemographic, political, cultural, economic, and environmental factors as well as media coverage and interaction with different news and social media. International public opinion on climate change shows a majority viewing the crisis as an emergency.
Public opinion polling is an important part of studying climate communication and how to improve climate action. Evidence of public opinion can help increase commitment to act by decision makers. Surveys and polling to assess opinion have been done since the 1980s, first focusing on awareness, but gradually including greater detail about commitments to climate action. More recently, global surveys give much finer data, for example, in January 2021, the United Nations Development Programme published the results of The Peoples' Climate Vote. This was the largest-ever climate survey, with responses from 1.2 million people in 50 countries, which indicated that 64% of respondents considered climate change to be an emergency, with forest and land conservation being the most popular solutions.
Public surveys
According to a 2015 journal article based on a literature review of thousands of articles related to over two hundred studies covering the period from 1980 to 2014, there was an increase in public awareness of climate change in the 1980s and early 1990s, followed by a period of growing concern— mixed with the rise of conflicting positions—in the later 1990s and early 2000s. This was followed by a period of "declining public concern and increasing skepticism" in some countries in the mid-2000s to late-2000s. From 2010 to 2014, there was a period suggesting "possible stabilization of public concern about climate change".The 2021 Lloyd's Register Foundation World Risk Poll conducted by Gallup found that 67% of people viewed climate change as a threat to people in their country, which is a slight decrease from 69% in 2019, possibly due to the COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on health and livelihoods being pressing issues. The 2021 poll was conducted in 121 countries and included over 125,000 interviews. The study also revealed that many countries and regions with high experience of disasters related to natural hazards, including those made more frequent and severe by climate change, are also those with low resilience.
A 2021 survey conducted by the Institute of Economic Affairs found that 75% of young British respondents agreed with the view that climate change was a specifically capitalist problem.
Over 73,000 people speaking 87 different languages across 77 countries were asked 15 questions on climate change for the Peoples' Climate Vote 2024, a public opinion survey on climate change, which was conducted for the UN Development Programme with the University of Oxford and GeoPoll. It showed 80 percent people globally want their governments to take stronger action to tackle the climate crisis.
In 2024 Ipsos conducted a survey about the importance of climate issues in elections. It found that among the factors influencing the voters' decisions, climate change is generally at the 10th place of importance, long behind other issues, especially inflation. This worried some experts as around 4 billion people from more than 65 countries, responsible for 40% of emissions, are expected to participate in national elections in 2024.
The 89% project
In February 2024, a global survey found that 89% of global population want more climate action, 69% agree to give 1% of their income to climate action. But, when the researchers asked the opinion of the respondents about the share of population which want more climate action, the average answer was much lower than the real numbers. Other studies also showed a vast majority in favor of climate action and even for distribution of wealth from the rich to the poor through carbon emission trading. In April 2025, many media including the Guardian launched "The 89% project" for highlighting the existence of a majority in favor of climate action.Results from climate survey of European Investment Bank in 2021
91% of Chinese respondents to an EU survey in 2021, 73% of Britons, 70% of Europeans and 60% of Americans support stronger policies for climate change mitigation. 63% of EU residents, 59% of Britons, 50% of Americans and 60% of Chinese respondents are in favor of switching to renewable energy. 18% of Americans are in favor of natural gas as a source of energy. For Britons and EU citizens, nuclear energy is a more popular energy alternative. 69% of EU respondents, 71% of UK respondents, 62% of US respondents and 89% of Chinese respondents support a tax on the items and services that contribute the most to global warming.In the 2022 edition of the same climate survey, in the European Union and the United Kingdom 87% of respondents agree that their government has moved too slowly to address climate change, compared to 76% and 74%, respectively, in China and the United States. The majority of persons polled in the European Union and China think that climate change has an impact on their daily life. Meanwhile, Americans and Britons have a less extreme picture of this. More findings from the survey show that 63% of people in the European Union want energy costs to be dependent on use, with the greatest consumers paying more. This is compared to 83% in China, 63% in the UK and 57% in the US.
Compared to 84% in China, 66% in the United States, and 52% in the United Kingdom, 64% of EU respondents want polluting activities like air travel and SUVs to be taxed more heavily to account for their environmental impact. 88% of Chinese, 83% of British, and 72% of American respondents, 84% of EU respondents believe that a worldwide catastrophe is inevitable if the consumption of products and energy is not lowered in the next years.
According to the European Investment Bank's climate survey from 2022, 84% of EU respondents stated that if people do not significantly cut back on our consumption of goods and energy in the near future, the negative effects would be non-reversible. 63% of EU citizens want energy prices to be based on consumption, with higher costs for those individuals or businesses who use the most energy and 40% of respondents from the EU believe that their government should lower energy-related taxes in the near future. 87% of EU respondents and 85% of UK respondents believe that their governments are moving too slowly to halt climate change. Few respondents from the UK, EU, and the US believe that their governments will be successful in decreasing carbon emissions by 2030.
According to the 2024 survey conducted in the European Union, 86% of Europeans believe that investing in climate change adaptation can lead to job creation and stimulate the local economy. The same survey also reveals that 80% of respondents, including 89% from southern European countries, have encountered at least one extreme weather event over the last five years. Of these, 55% reported experiencing extreme heat and heatwaves, with higher occurrences in Spain and Romania. Furthermore, 35% of respondents have been affected by droughts, with the incidence rising to 62% in Romania and 49% in Spain. Additionally, 34% have witnessed heavy storms or hail, with 62% in Slovenia and 49% in Croatia reporting such experiences.
Older surveys (prior to 2013)
In Europe, the notion of human influence on climate gained wide acceptance more rapidly than in the United States and other countries. A 2009 survey found that Europeans rated climate change as the second most serious problem facing the world, between "poverty, the lack of food and drinking water" and "a major global economic downturn". 87% of Europeans considered climate change to be a very serious or serious problem, while ten per cent did not consider it a serious problem.A 15-nation poll conducted in 2006, by Pew Global found that there "is a substantial gap in concern over global warming—roughly two-thirds of Japanese and Indians say they personally worry a great deal about global warming. Roughly half of the populations of Spain and France also express great concern over global warming, based on those who have heard about the issue. But there is no evidence of alarm over global warming in either the United States or China—the two largest producers of greenhouse gases. Just 19% of Americans and 20% of the Chinese who have heard of the issue say they worry a lot about global warming—the lowest percentages in the 15 countries surveyed. Moreover, nearly half of Americans and somewhat fewer Chinese express little or no concern about the problem."
A 47-nation poll by Pew Global Attitudes conducted in 2007 found, "Substantial majorities 25 of 37 countries say global warming is a 'very serious' problem."
Matthew C. Nisbet and Teresa Myers' 2007 article—"Twenty Years of Public Opinion about Global Warming"—covered two decades in the United States starting in 1980—in which they investigated public awareness of the causes and impacts of global warming, public policy, scientific consensus on climate change, public support for the Kyoto Accord, and their concerns about the economic costs of potential public policies that responded to climate change. They found that from 1986 to 1990, the proportion of respondents who reported having heard about climate change increased from 39% to 74%. However, they noted "levels of overall understanding were limited".
A 2010 journal article in Risk Analysis compared and contrasted a 1992 survey and a 2009 survey of lay peoples' awareness and opinions of climate change. In 1992, the general public did not differentiate between climate change and the depletion of the ozone layer. Using a mental models methodology, researchers found that while there was a marked increase in understanding of climate change by 2009, many did not accept that global warming was "primarily due to increased concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere", or that the "single most important source of this carbon dioxide is the combustion of fossil fuels".