The majority of people in every country in the world worry about climate change and support policies to tackle it. We can see this in the survey data shown on the map.
Surveys can produce unreliable — even conflicting — results depending on the population sample, what questions are asked, and the framing, so I’ve looked at several reputable sources to see how they compare. While the figures vary a bit depending on the specific question asked, the results are pretty consistent.
In a recent paper published in Science Advances, Madalina Vlasceanu and colleagues surveyed 59,000 people across 63 countries.1 “Belief” in climate change was 86%. Here, “belief” was measured based on answers to questions about whether action was necessary to avoid a global catastrophe, whether humans were causing climate change, whether it was a serious threat to humanity, and whether it was a global emergency.
People think climate change is a serious threat, and humans are the cause. Concern was high across countries: even in the country with the lowest agreement, 73% agreed.
You can see the differences in this score across countries in the map above.
The majority also supported climate policies, with an average global score of 72%. “Policy support” was measured across nine interventions, including carbon taxes on fossil fuels, expanding public transport, more renewable energy, more electric car chargers, taxes on airlines, and protecting forests. In the country with the lowest support, there was still a majority (59%) who supported these policies.
These scores are high considering the wide range of policies suggested.
Most of us systematically underestimate how widespread support for climate action is.
We see evidence for this in the study by Andre et al. (2024) we already looked at. It asked people if they’d be willing to give 1% of their income to tackle climate change. Across the 125-country sample, 69% said “yes”.
They then asked the same participants what share of others in their country would say “yes” to the same question. The average across countries was just 43%.
This wasn’t just the case in some countries; it was the case in every country. You can see this in the chart below. On the horizontal axis, we have the share that said they were willing to give 1% of their income. On the vertical axis is the perceived share of how many would be willing to give. Every single country falls below the “equity” line, meaning that the share was underestimated everywhere.
More people in our country care about this issue than we think.
One interesting observation is that populations in low- and middle-income countries are more willing to pay than in rich countries. 83% of those in Bangladesh said yes, compared to 48% in the UK or the US. This might reflect levels of climate risk: if your livelihood was at risk from climate-related disasters, then you are more willing to give up some of your income. This feeling of threat might be less salient in richer, more temperate countries.
We should always be cautious when examining people’s claims that they are willing to pay. Saying you’ll give up some of your income is not the same as actually doing it. Nonetheless, these results tell us that there is a “perception gap” in how we view our own climate opinions and those of others.
I think there’s a lot more support for Other People to do something than there is willingness for people to change their own habits in a timely fashion. Wanting more mass transit is sensible, but would these people actually use it or do they just expect other (younger? poorer?) people to use it, and will they vote for the bond issue or tax increase to pay for it? On top of it, the big changes (EVs, new appliances) are pretty pricey.
I’ve made a lot of changes over time, but I don’t think I’ll give up flying at least two round trips for family every year (plus funerals), or switch to e-books, or stop doing frivolous things like coloring my hair, or cut out coffee and/or chocolate.
♫♪ Easierrrr…easier said than done!