earth science

Public opinion on climate change

Public opinion on climate change is a earth science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Public opinion on climate change rather than just read about it. In short: 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.

Key takeaways

Public opinion on climate change belongs to earth science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Public opinion on climate change to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Public opinion on climate change from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

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 (IEA) found that 75% of young British (16-24) 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 (UNDP) 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.

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Public opinion on climate change

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Public opinion on climate change claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In earth science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Public opinion on climate change before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Public opinion on climate change ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Public opinion on climate change

In research: Public opinion on climate change appears in earth science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Public opinion on climate change in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Public opinion on climate change is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Climate change and society, Climate change denial, Environmental education, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Public opinion on climate change outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Public opinion on climate change in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Public opinion on climate change means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Public opinion on climate change out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Public opinion on climate change in simple terms?

Why does Public opinion on climate change matter?

Because it connects several earth science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Public opinion on climate change?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Public opinion on climate change.