Public perception of climate action after extreme weather

London Climate Action Week ran 1,300 events this year, double last year's. The word that came up least was climate itself. Speakers dropped it on purpose. What replaced it was heat, flooding, bills and dirty air, things people actually feel. Eileen Higgins, Mayor of Miami, put it most bluntly: where she works it is almost illegal to say climate. So she stopped. She talks about flooding and homes people can no longer insure; in Florida, insurance often costs more than the mortgage. She points to the flood bond, palms swapped for trees that hold back water, and resilience hubs for low-income areas. Yes, it is adaptation and resilience. But actually it is all about improving people's lives. She never calls it climate. London told the same story through mitigation. In 2013, nine-year-old Ella Adoo-Kissi-Debrah died from an asthma attack a landmark inquest ruled was caused by air pollution. Sadiq Khan apologised formally on the city's behalf, then expanded the Ultra Low Emission Zone with tougher rules. NO2 down 41%, PM2.5 down 28%, toxic-air deaths down around 40%. That is mitigation: fewer polluting vehicles, more electric ones, in language a parent understands. Kate Gallego, Mayor of Phoenix, is doing the same with heat. She appointed a Chief Heat Officer, paints tarmac with reflective coatings, plants shade, and is wrestling with the AI boom's data centres, which throw off heat and strain power and water. Her answer: co-locate some next to factories that can use the waste heat, cutting the energy they would otherwise burn on heating. Again, the language is money and health. My first reaction was scepticism: this felt like spin, or greenwashing dressed up as common sense. But listen to what replaced the word: flooding, bills, insurance, clean air, a child's asthma. That is not evasion. It is what people feel, and it makes the case more pragmatic and inclusive, stripping the politics out of a word that had turned polarising and weaponised. Emma Pinchbeck FEI, who runs the UK Climate Change Committee, put numbers on it that week. The UK was built for a climate that no longer exists: around 2 degrees by 2050, up to 4 by century's end. The adaptation bill is roughly £11 billion a year, expected to return tens of billions. The cost of waiting compounds every year. The risks land hardest as heat for the young, the ill and outdoor workers, as food insecurity, and as flooding reaching roads, homes and railways. Investors and operators should sit with that. Higgins sells lower insurance and homes that do not flood. Khan sells clean air for children who cannot vote for him. Gallego sells cooler homes and lower bills. What people line up to buy is a cheaper, safer, healthier life, savings built in. For anyone building or backing companies here, the lesson is simple. Sell the lower bill, the safer home and the cleaner air. That is mitigation and adaptation both, spoken in language people can feel.

𝗗𝗼 𝗳𝗹𝗼𝗼𝗱𝘀 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗳𝗶𝗿𝗲𝘀 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘆 𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗴𝗲 𝗺𝗶𝗻𝗱𝘀 𝗼𝗻 𝗰𝗹𝗶𝗺𝗮𝘁𝗲? 𝗔𝗽𝗽𝗮𝗿𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗹𝘆 𝗻𝗼𝘁. 𝗔 𝗿𝗲𝗰𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗹𝘆 𝗽𝘂𝗯𝗹𝗶𝘀𝗵𝗲𝗱 𝗡𝗮𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲 𝗽𝗮𝗽𝗲𝗿 𝗲𝘅𝗽𝗹𝗮𝗶𝗻𝘀 𝘄𝗵𝘆, 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗶𝘁 𝗺𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁 𝘀𝘂𝗿𝗽𝗿𝗶𝘀𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂. We often assume that people living through extreme weather will naturally become more supportive of climate policy. That if your town burns, floods, or bakes, belief will follow experience. But a new global study—spanning 68 countries and over 70,000 people—shows this isn’t quite how it works. 𝗘𝘅𝗽𝗼𝘀𝘂𝗿𝗲 𝗮𝗹𝗼𝗻𝗲 𝗱𝗼𝗲𝘀𝗻’𝘁 𝗺𝗼𝘃𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗱𝗶𝗮𝗹. 𝗔𝘁𝘁𝗿𝗶𝗯𝘂𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗱𝗼𝗲𝘀. The relationship held even when objective exposure did not. Researchers found that while most people are exposed to extreme weather, it’s 𝘯𝘰𝘵 this exposure that predicts support for climate policy; it's whether people believe that climate change 𝘤𝘢𝘶𝘴𝘦𝘥 those events. In short, it’s not 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵 happens that matters. It’s 𝘸𝘩𝘺 we 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘬 it happened that matters most. This “𝘴𝘶𝘣𝘫𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘷𝘦 𝘢𝘵𝘵𝘳𝘪𝘣𝘶𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯” was a stronger predictor of climate policy support than actual exposure for 5 of the 7 types of extreme weather studied. That’s floods, cyclones, heatwaves, heavy precipitation and winter storms. In many countries, especially across Africa and parts of Europe, the link between extreme weather and climate remains under-recognised, even when events are increasing. The study even suggests a kind of “ceiling effect” in some countries—especially in Latin America—where subjective attribution is already so high that further exposure doesn’t significantly boost policy support. 𝗠𝘆 𝗧𝗮𝗸𝗲 What caught my attention is the power of belief over experience. Even in regions hammered by heat or soaked by storms, policy support only rises when people believe in the connection between the event and climate change. The science of attribution is evolving fast, but public understanding of attribution is lagging. We spend billions modelling exposure, but we undervalue the power of communicating direct attribution. This research suggests that unless people 𝘢𝘵𝘵𝘳𝘪𝘣𝘶𝘵𝘦 events to climate change, there is no automatic incentive for improved policy. In one respect, this research is self-evident, but at the same time, the attribution of a single extreme weather event to climate change is a complex and challenging undertaking. The science behind communicating these links must evolve. Attribution isn’t just a scientific tool. It could be the most powerful lever we have for change. #ClimateChange #ExtremeWeather #AttributionScience #ClimatePolicy #ClimateCommunication #BehaviouralScience #GlobalSouth #Resilience #NetZero #Sustainability #SystemsThinking Source: https://lnkd.in/enHK_NKh Authors: Viktoria Cologna Simona Meiler Chahan Kropf 𝗲𝘁 𝗮𝗹 _____________ For updates on sustainability and climate, follow me on LinkedIn: Scott Kelly

New research finds that people who personally experience extreme climate events (e.g., wildfires, flooding) are willing to pay more for climate action, even if they report skepticism about human-caused climate change. When climate change is a distant concepts, many have problems relating to it. But once the impact of climate change is really felt on a personal level, we are willing to take action. Regardless of their stance on climate change, people who experienced an extreme weather event were willing to pay about $100 more per year on clean energy than people with similar beliefs who hadn't experienced an extreme event. The study is based on survey data from 6,000 U.S. residents (extreme weather events were verified through additional data). Even Trump voters who reported experiencing an extreme weather event were more likely in favour of clean energy compared to Trump voters who had not experienced such events. Full study: https://lnkd.in/dBjhpxD8 #climatechange, #sustainability

🚨 New preprint! 🚨 Do people who have experienced a climate-related hazard view climate change as a more serious threat? Using nationally representative survey data from 142 countries (N = 128,093), I found that people who have experienced a climate-related hazard are more likely to consider climate change a 𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺 𝘴𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘰𝘶𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘵. These effects are consistent across eleven hazard types and comparable in magnitude to the effect of having a university education. What did I do in this preprint? ✔ Leveraged global data from the World Risk Poll, which asks respondents whether they perceive climate change as 𝘯𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘵 𝘢𝘵 𝘢𝘭𝘭, 𝘢 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘴𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘰𝘶𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘵, or 𝘢 𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺 𝘴𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘰𝘶𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘵 to their country in the next twenty years. It also asks whether they have experienced a hazard in the last five years. ✔ Used hierarchical Bayesian multinomial regression modelling to assess whether hazard experience is associated with increased climate risk perception at the 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯-𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘵𝘳𝘺 and the 𝘣𝘦𝘵𝘸𝘦𝘦𝘯-𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘵𝘳𝘺 level. I found that the within-country effects are consistent across hazard types, while the between-country effects are small and uncertain. ✔ This modelling approach also allowed me to investigate what level of risk perception is different for people with hazard experience. It turns out that people with hazard experience are more likely to view climate change as a 𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺 𝘴𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘰𝘶𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘵, not just a 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘴𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘰𝘶𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘵. ✔ The World Risk Poll data also includes a resilience index defined at the individual level, combining individual, household, community, and societal resilience factors. The increase in risk perception for people who have experienced a climate-related hazard does not appear to be clearly amplified or attenuated by a person's resilience. What does all this mean for climate action as global heating increases? There has always been the hope that more severe impacts and the associated increase in climate risk perception could galvanize leaders and citizens to take action commensurate with the scale of the threat. In the largest cross-national study to date, I found that experience with climate-related hazards is indeed associated with markedly increased climate risk perception worldwide. This may well translate into even stronger public support for climate action in the future. However, the indirect socioeconomic effects of increased warming in the context of rising authoritarianism may well outweigh these positive effects and threaten climate progress. We can expect increasingly entrenched battle lines in the struggle for a liveable Earth. Preprint: https://lnkd.in/dJ_Yfgwn Bluesky: https://lnkd.in/dsPTN5Jg

Almost half of Americans (45%) now expect to see catastrophic climate impacts within their own lifetimes according to a new YouGov survey. That’s no longer a scientific forecast; it’s a mainstream reality check. What’s even more telling is that the "Climate Perception Gap" is closing in the places we’d least expect. The latest AEF survey shows that in states like Texas, Florida, Ohio, and Indiana, the push for solutions is decoupling from political identity. In fact, 83% of voters in these key states, including 75% of Trump supporters, now view solar as a strategic necessity for U.S. energy dominance. This represents a fundamental shift in the sustainability landscape: 🏠 Survivalism is the new Sustainability. People aren't just worried about melting ice caps; they are worried about their own homes and local economies. Climate change has become personal, local, and immediate. ⚡ The "Solution Consensus." Even among those who might disagree on the cause of climate change, there is an overwhelming consensus on the cure. Clean energy is now being framed as national security, economic competition with China, and a way to lower utility bills. 💸 Perception Drives Pressure. When 45% of the public expects a disaster, "business-as-usual" isn't just a slow strategy, it’s a fiduciary risk. Leaders who ignore this are effectively devaluing their own assets and ignoring a massive, cross-partisan mandate for resilience. The Bottom Line: The gap between what the public fears and what leadership delivers has never been wider. Whether you're driven by environmental concern or economic dominance, the destination is the same: a cleaner, more resilient energy grid. Link to the research in the comments ⬇️ #Sustainability #CleanEnergy #RiskManagement #EnergyTransition #ClimateAction #2026Trends #EnergyDominance

For years, climate action has been presented as the story of sacrifice: less comfort, less choice, higher costs, more rules, a smaller life justified by a safer planet. That story was never capable of carrying a movement. More importantly, it's not an honest description of the world as it is. Because for the vast majority of us, business as usual is now the real sacrifice. Families are already sacrificing income to food and energy volatility; citizens are sacrificing health to polluted air and extreme heat; communities are sacrificing resilience as the soils, rivers, forests, and coastlines that they depend on are degraded; and countries are sacrificing freedom and strategic autonomy to dependence on imported fuels. Fossil fuels have tied us to volatile global markets and unstable suppliers for decades. Europe was reminded how costly that exposure could be after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine: between 2021 - 2024 fossil fuel imports cost roughly €930 billion more than they would have before energy prices spiked. These costs, borne by households and businesses, do not build stronger communities, cleaner industry, or greater resilience. They do not train workers, modernise grids, or lower bills for the future. They buy, at best, the same vulnerability at a higher price. Food tells the same story. In the five years to May 2026, BLS-tracked average retail prices for ground roast coffee rose by about 108%, while regular ground beef rose by about 64% as drought and extreme heat have damaged coffee harvests, shrunk cattle herds, raised feed pressures, and tightened beef supplies. Climate and ecological breakdown are no longer distant risks, but pressures people already recognise in their homes, workplaces, communities and weekly budgets. But, because those pressures are rarely connected to their causes, climate action is often heard as yet another sacrifice imposed on people who are already stretched. The task of leadership is to make the connection clear: the transition, done well, is not an added burden. It is how we stop these costs and insecurities from spiralling year after year. When climate action is explained in those terms, it cuts through. Recent research commissioned by the Rockefeller Foundation and the Potential Energy Coalition, based on more than 83,000 adults across the US, UK, Canada, France, Germany, and Italy, found that messages focused on less pollution, better health, affordability, energy security, and protecting future generations increased support for action by more than 10 percentage points. Interestingly, “net zero” was the least popular term tested. So, let’s speak in terms that people recognise: less sacrifice, more freedom; less dependence, more security; less delay, more leadership. Not a retreat from the modern economy, but a route to a cheaper, safer, and more secure one. Start there, and the transition stops looking like sacrifice, and starts looking like common sense.

More than 83,000 people across six countries were asked how they feel about climate action. The answer is more hopeful than the headlines suggest: support is strong, and it holds across nations, generations, and political lines. That's the finding from new research by Potential Energy Coalition, supported by The Rockefeller Foundation. The opportunity now is to meet that support by speaking about climate in the language of everyday life: cleaner air, lower costs, accessible energy, and a healthier future. The research points to three simple shifts for anyone communicating on climate: ➡️ Lead with what people feel. Naming the real human impacts, from extreme weather to rising household costs, is the single most effective way to make climate feel relevant. ➡️ Make the cause concrete. Reminding people that the root cause is pollution we can reduce makes the problem feel 10-20% more solvable and lowers polarization. ➡️ Frame energy by what it gives us, not by what it bans. The strongest messages emphasize what clean energy delivers: local availability, low cost, and a path to energy independence. The will is already there, and with the right approach we can turn it into real, lasting momentum. Read the research here: https://lnkd.in/eGUb_iFb

Widespread support for climate action 💚 "Mitigating climate change necessitates global cooperation, yet global data on individuals’ willingness to act remain scarce. In this study, we conducted a representative survey across 125 countries, interviewing nearly 130,000 individuals. Our findings reveal widespread support for climate action. Notably, 69% of the global population expresses a willingness to contribute 1% of their personal income, 86% endorse pro-climate social norms and 89% demand intensified political action. Countries facing heightened vulnerability to climate change show a particularly high willingness to contribute. Despite these encouraging statistics, we document that the world is in a state of pluralistic ignorance, wherein individuals around the globe systematically underestimate the willingness of their fellow citizens to act. This perception gap, combined with individuals showing conditionally cooperative behaviour, poses challenges to further climate action. Therefore, raising awareness about the broad global support for climate action becomes critically important in promoting a unified response to climate change. Learn more https://lnkd.in/eRQzVwJN #climatechange #climateaction #climategoals #sustainability #future

89% of people want their governments to do more to address the climate crisis 🌎 New global research featured in The Guardian reveals a critical disconnect between public opinion and perceived social norms regarding climate action. A comprehensive survey across 125 countries representing 96% of global emissions shows that 89% of respondents believe their governments should take stronger measures to address the climate crisis. However, most people significantly underestimate how many others share this view—creating a perception gap that contributes to widespread inaction. This phenomenon aligns with what social scientists refer to as the “spiral of silence.” When individuals assume they are in the minority, they become less likely to express their views or support policy initiatives. Over time, this misperception becomes self-reinforcing, suppressing visible momentum for climate solutions. Experimental evidence cited by The Guardian supports the importance of correcting these misperceptions. In behavioral studies, participants who were informed that most people support climate action contributed significantly more to climate-related causes. This demonstrates how perceived norms directly influence individual behavior. The findings also reveal that willingness to act is global and cross-cutting. In China, 97% of respondents support stronger government intervention. In the United States, the figure stands at three-quarters. Even in high-emission petrostates such as Saudi Arabia and the UAE, a majority expressed willingness to allocate a portion of their income to climate efforts. Policy-making has not kept pace with public sentiment. In the United Kingdom, while 72% of the public supports onshore wind developments, only 19% of Members of Parliament correctly perceive this level of support. This misalignment between political judgment and actual public opinion delays or derails climate-related policy decisions. Communicating accurate data on public support for climate action may represent one of the most efficient, scalable interventions available. Social norm correction strategies are low-cost, evidence-based, and capable of catalyzing large-scale behavioral change across demographics and regions. As The Guardian concludes, making the silent majority visible is essential. Strategic communication that reinforces true public sentiment can help unlock social tipping points, strengthen climate policy, and accelerate the transition toward a low-carbon, resilient future. Source: The Guardian #sustainability #sustainable #business #esg #climatechange

Covering climate change matters. In research recently published in the Journal of Risk Research, my colleagues and I found that when TV news reports mentioned climate change or recommended actions to prepare for severe weather, viewers’ concern about severe weather events, climate change, and willingness to support policies that protect against severe weather events increased. The study, led by Wändi BRUINE DE BRUIN from the USC Sol Price School of Public Policy alongside Gale Sinatra at the USC Rossier School of Education and Allison Agsten at the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, examined more than 3,000 survey responses to TV news reports developed by journalists trained by the USC Annenberg Center for Climate Journalism and Communication. To date, the center has trained hundreds of journalists, scientists, and other professionals in science-backed best practices for accurately and effectively communicating about climate change. In a rapidly warming world, and one where weather related events grow more frequent, disruptive and costly, news audiences need access to relevant and timely information.  https://lnkd.in/gcQNeyuD