Most people around the world are worried about climate change – so why don’t we act?

Climate scientists have been worried about climate change since at least the 1950s. In 1988, the IPCC was founded by the United Nations. It has been bringing together the world’s top climate scientists, to provide governments worldwide with scientific information about climate change and potential solutions.

At first, warnings about climate change did not seem to have much effect. The 2007 Gallup World Poll showed that few people around the world worried about climate change. At the time, climate change seemed to be an uncertain and distant threat. If it were to happen, it would be at some point in the far away future.

But global public opinion has shifted. The 2019 World Risk Poll showed that over two-thirds of people around the world saw climate change as a threat. A similar level of concern was seen in the World Risk Polls of 2021 and 2023.

The latest World Risk Poll shows that climate concerns are more likely among people who worry about extreme weather. Around the world, records are being set for heat, fires, floods, and other extreme weather. Climate change is no longer an uncertain or distant threat. And people are noticing.

But there are two drawbacks to these findings, limiting climate action. And both have implications for climate communications.

The first drawback: not everyone around the world draws the link between extreme weather and climate change. The new World Risk Poll findings show that climate change concerns are relatively low in some regions of Africa and Asia. This may seem odd, because these regions are being hit hard by climate change. A deeper dive into the Poll data found that people in these regions do worry the most about extreme weather. Interviews with South African farmers have found that they are very aware of the weather changing – but may be unsure about the link to climate change. It doesn’t help that climate communications use jargon such as “mitigation” and “adaptation.”

The solution: climate communications should be easy to understand, and use concrete examples of weather changes that are expected due to climate change. 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 everyday language. We have written a quick guide to climate jargon for people who want to learn more about climate change without the buzz words. We also helped to make graphs in IPCC reports easier to understand.

The second drawback: taking action is especially important in high-income countries, which contribute the most to climate change. The World Risk Poll shows that people in high-income countries tend to be the most worried about climate change. But not everyone who is worried about climate change is doing something about it or willing to support policy change. One reason is that people feel that few others are worried about climate change – even though the World Risk Poll shows that is not true.  Another reason is that many people who are worried about climate change are not sure what to do. Yet another reason people hesitate to act is that they believe taking individual action is not enough, because oil companies contribute the most to climate change.

The solution: people are more likely to act when they know they are not alone, so sharing the World Risk Poll findings is an important step towards helping people see that most others are worried about climate change. The World Risk Poll findings may also help to make policy makers more aware of shifting public opinions. Showing people what actions they can take is another important step. We therefore created this video.