Resource Type: Polling & Surveys

This post includes a roundup of climate and environment headlines, data points, and key takeaways from this week’s public polls – including a lot of new polling on the Build Back Better plan, its climate and environmental provisions, and economic arguments in favor of the plan.

Climate organizers should keep their eye out for people who say they feel responsible to reduce emissions. This research shows that people who say they feel responsible to reduce climate change also say they intend to take future political actions. However, these people don’t necessarily say they took actions like these in the past. Americans who feel more climate responsible are more likely to say they would (A) “join a campaign to convince elected officials to take action to reduce global warming” and (B) support a presidential candidate who “strongly supports taking action to reduce global warming.” These feelings of responsibility did not predict someone claiming they had contacted a politician about global warming in the past 12 months, though.

This post includes a roundup of climate and environment headlines, data points, and key takeaways from this week’s public polls – including new polling on the Build Back Better plan, climate agreements made at COP26, and young Americans’ climate attitudes.

Majorities of youth and young adults around the world are worried about climate change, report negative emotions related to the issue, and find government responses inadequate. In this study, youth or young adults were considered aged 16-25. 59% are very or extremely worried and 84% are at least moderately worried. More than 50% said they feel sad, anxious, angry, powerless, helpless, and guilty. More than 45% said their feelings about climate change negatively affected their daily life and functioning, and many reported a high number of negative thoughts about climate—for example, 75% said that they think the future is frightening, and 83% said that they think people have failed to take care of the planet). Further, most rated governmental responses to climate change negatively and reported greater feelings of betrayal than of reassurance.

When messaging about climate impacts, don’t lead with temperature goals. For most people, “1.5°C” of global warming just doesn’t seem that bad. In the US, nearly 50% of respondents felt there would be no change or perhaps even slight improvement to life on a hotter Earth. Globally, the average person believed the U.N proposed a cap on warming of an additional 4°C (putting us on track for an utter catastrophe.) Globally, less than a third of people know what the Paris Agreement is.