Our prior research has identified six distinct audiences within the public – the Alarmed, Concerned, Cautious, Disengaged, Doubtful, and Dismissive – based on their beliefs and attitudes about climate change. The Alarmed are convinced climate change is happening, human-caused, and an urgent threat, and strongly support climate policies. The Concerned think human-caused climate change is happening and is a serious threat, and support climate policies. However, they tend to believe that climate impacts are still distant in time and space, thus the issue remains a lower priority. The Cautious have not yet made up their minds: Is climate change happening? Is it human-caused? Is it serious? The Disengaged know little to nothing about climate change and rarely if ever hear about it. The Doubtful do not think climate change is happening or they believe it is just a natural cycle. And the Dismissive are convinced climate change is not happening, human-caused, or a threat, and oppose most climate policies.
Here, we apply this analysis to our large international survey of more than 100 countries and territories worldwide, collected in partnership with Data for Good at Meta and Rare’s Center for Behavior and the Environment in 2023. We find that the Alarmed are the largest group in about three-fourths of the areas surveyed (87 of the 110). In fact, half or more respondents in thirty-one areas are Alarmed. The five areas with the largest percentage of Alarmed are Puerto Rico (70%), El Salvador (67%), Costa Rica (65%), Chile (64%), and Panama (64%). By contrast, Czechia (10%) and the Netherlands (9%) have the smallest percentages of Alarmed. In the United States, about one-third of respondents are Alarmed (32%). Among all areas, the Netherlands has the highest proportion of Doubtful and Dismissive (30%), followed by Norway (27%) and Libya (25%). In the United States, about one in four respondents are Doubtful or Dismissive (25%).
The United States is less Alarmed about global warming than most other top carbon-emitting countries There are substantial differences among the 15 nations in the study that are responsible for the largest annual shares of global carbon emissions (note this study did not include China, Russia, or Iran). Among these countries, the largest proportion of Alarmed are in Mexico (62%), followed by India (58%) and Brazil (57%). The United States is the second-largest annual emitter and the world’s largest historical emitter of the carbon pollution that causes global warming. Yet, relatively few people in the United States are Alarmed about global warming, compared to other top emitters. The U.S. has the fourth-smallest percentage of Alarmed (32%), after Australia (28%), Germany (26%), and Indonesia (25%). On the other end of the Six Audiences spectrum, the countries with the largest percentages of Doubtful or Dismissive respondents are the United States (25%), Australia (24%), and Germany (21%)......read on https://