Half of people in Myanmar unsure of climate change threat, global study finds

The figures come from the latest edition of the Lloyd’s Register Foundation World Risk Poll, and are explored further in its latest report: ‘What the world worries about: global perceptions and experiences of risk and harm’. The data was collected by global analytics firm Gallup, who conducted 147,000 interviews in 142 countries and territories around the world, and found that some regions, including Myanmar, are home to high levels of uncertainty when it comes to understanding the threat posed by climate change.

In Myanmar, 51% of people said they ‘don’t know’ whether climate change is a threat to people in their country in the next 20 years – the highest proportion globally. This is compared to 18% in 2019 and 33% in 2021. 

As a region, the population of Southeast Asia carries the highest overall levels of climate change uncertainty, with more than one quarter (27%) of respondents saying they ‘don’t know’ whether it poses a threat to their country in the next 20 years. 

In contrast, the latest results show that globally, fewer people now express no opinion on the threat posed by climate change. On a global scale, just 12% say they do not know if climate change is a threat to their country – a significant seven percentage point decline from 19% in 2021 and 18% in 2019. This places Myanmar 39 percentage points above the global average for the proportion of people who are uncertain. 

This also means that globally, more people have decided whether or not they view climate change as a threat. While the proportion of people viewing climate change as a ‘very serious’ threat to their country in the next 20 years dipped by two percentage points from 41% to 39%, the proportion who said it is a ‘somewhat serious’ threat increased by seven percentage points (from 26% in 2021 to 33% in 2023). In Myanmar, 17% of people view climate change as a ‘very serious’ threat and 22% of people view it as a ‘somewhat serious’ threat.

Worryingly, the proportion of people globally who do not view climate change as a threat at all to their country in the next 20 years also increased by two percentage points, to 16% in 2023. This is compared to 9% in Myanmar.

In total, almost three-quarters (72%) of the world’s adult population feel at least somewhat threatened by climate change – five percentage points higher than the 67% measured in 2021 and 69% in 2019.

Remarkably, the uncertainty felt in countries like Myanmar is set against a backdrop of increasing experiences of climate-related severe weather and disasters. In 2023, over one in four people (28%) said they had experienced a disaster related to a natural hazard in the past five years, compared to 23% in 2021.

Nancy Hey, Director of Evidence and Insight at Lloyd’s Register Foundation, said: 

“Our findings show that the proportion of people globally who appreciate the threat posed by climate change has stayed relatively stable since 2019. What is notable is that fewer people now sit on the fence when it comes to their views on climate change, with a reduction in the proportion who say they ‘don’t know’ if it is a threat. And yet, in countries like Myanmar, the proportion of people with no opinion remains high. 

“Many of the world’s most populous countries, such as Nigeria, Indonesia, and the Democratic Republic of Congo, also feature on this list. While the low levels of awareness in these countries is concerning, it also presents an opportunity. These people are not climate sceptics – reliable, useful information is missing. Targeted information may be key to unlocking action needed to tackle the generational challenge of climate change.”

Professor Wändi Bruine de Bruin, Provost Professor of Public Policy, Psychology, and Behavioural Science at the University of Southern California, said:

“Severe weather events haven been becoming more frequent across the world, including in Myanmar. Because of this, it may seem surprising to see that 51% of people in the country said they didn’t know whether climate change is a threat.

“Yet we’re also seeing that most people in Myanmar worry when it comes to harm from severe weather. This suggests that many may not be seeing the link between climate change and weather change, which could be down to the complex nature of climate change. And climate change communications often don’t help, because they use scientific language that can be off-putting and hard to understand.  

“That’s why my team at the University of Southern California has been working with the United Nations Foundation and the IPCC to find ways to talk about climate change in concrete every-day language. If you want to inform people, you have to stop confusing them with climate jargon.”