In the second edition of the world’s biggest standalone public opinion survey on climate change – The Peoples’ Climate Vote 2024 – 80% of people globally want their governments to take stronger action to tackle the climate crisis.
Even more – 86% – want to see their countries set aside geopolitical differences and work together on climate change.
The survey spanned over 77 countries, including India, representing 87% of the world’s population, the report was released on Thursday. More than 75,000 persons, speaking 87 different languages, were asked 15 questions on climate change for the survey, which was conducted for the UN Development Programme (UNDP) with the University of Oxford, UK and GeoPoll.
The questions were designed to help understand how people are experiencing the impacts of climate change and how they want world leaders to respond.
Amidst a pivotal year of elections and with CO on the horizon, these results offer a groundbreaking public snapshot of where the world stands on climate change.
In India – where heatwaves have devastated crop yields and torrential rains have submerged many areas – the Peoples’ Climate Vote found that 77% thought their country should strengthen its commitments to address climate change. Three out of four (76%) favour their country replacing coal, oil and gas with renewable energy such as solar and wind energy.
A huge majority (79%) of Indians think countries should work together on climate change even if they disagree on other issues, such as trade or security while setting aside geopolitical differences.
Fifteen questions were prepared about their lived experience of the climate crisis and their responses to it.
Over half (56%) of people globally said they think about climate change frequently (daily or weekly), while 32% think about it a few times a year, and 11% never think about climate change. Over half (53%) of people globally said that compared with last year, they are more worried about climate change, while 31% said about the same, and 15% reported they are less worried. Globally 43% of people thought extreme weather events were worse this year than last.
