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    Common Dreams. To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good.
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    covering climate now

    Protester holds sign saying, "Planet over profit."

    Care About the Climate Crisis? The World Is With You

    People who support climate action are implicitly told—by their elected officials, by the fossil fuel industry, by news coverage and social media discourse—that theirs is a minority, even a fringe, view. That is not what the new research finds.

    Mark Hertsgaard
    Kyle Pope
    Apr 25, 2025

    A superpower in the fight against global heating is hiding in plain sight. It turns out that the overwhelming majority of people in the world—between 80% and 89%, according to a growing number of peer-reviewed scientific studies—want their governments to take stronger climate action.

    As co-founders of a nonprofit that studies news coverage of climate change, those findings surprised even us. And they are a sharp rebuttal to the Trump administration’s efforts to attack anyone who does care about the climate crisis.

    For years—and especially at this fraught political moment—most coverage of the climate crisis has been defensive. People who support climate action are implicitly told—by their elected officials, by the fossil fuel industry, by news coverage and social media discourse—that theirs is a minority, even a fringe, view.

    That is not what the new research finds.

    What would it mean if this silent climate majority woke up—if its members came to understand just how many people, both in distant lands and in their own communities, think and feel like they do?

    The most recent study, People’s Climate Vote 2024, was conducted by Oxford University as part of a program the United Nations launched after the 2015 Paris agreement. Among poorer countries, where roughly 4 out of 5 of the world’s inhabitants live, 89% of the public wanted stronger climate action. In richer, industrialized countries, roughly 2 out of 3 people wanted stronger action. Combining rich and poor populations, “80% [of people globally] want more climate action from their governments.”

    The Yale Program on Climate Change Communication—which, along with its partner, the George Mason University Center for Climate Change Communication, is arguably the global gold standard in climate opinion research—has published numerous studies documenting the same point: Most people, in most countries, want stronger action on the climate crisis.

    A fascinating additional 89% angle was documented in a study published by Nature Climate Change, which noted that the overwhelming global majority does not know it is the majority: “[I]ndividuals around the globe systematically underestimate the willingness of their fellow citizens to act,” the report states.

    In other words, an overwhelming majority of people want stronger action against climate change. But at least for now, this global climate majority is a silent majority.

    Taken together, the new research turns the conventional wisdom about climate opinion on its ear. At a time when many governments and companies are stalling or retreating from rapidly phasing out the fossil fuels that are driving deadly heat, fires, and floods, the fact that more than 8 out of 10 human beings on the planet want their political representatives to preserve a livable future offers a much-needed ray of hope. The question is whether and how that mass sentiment might be translated into effective action.

    What would it mean if this silent climate majority woke up—if its members came to understand just how many people, both in distant lands and in their own communities, think and feel like they do? How might this majority’s actions—as citizens, as consumers, as voters—change? If the current narrative in news and social media shifted from one of retreat and despair to one of self-confidence and common purpose, would people shift from being passive observers to active shapers of their shared future? If so, what kinds of climate action would they demand from their leaders?

    These are the animating questions behind the 89% Project, a yearlong media initiative that launched this week. The journalistic nonprofit we run, Covering Climate Now, has invited newsrooms from around the world to report, independently or together, on the climate majorities found in their communities.

    Who are the people who comprise the 89%? Given that support for climate action varies by country—the figure is 74% in the U.S., 80% in India, 90% in Burkina Faso—does support also vary by age, gender, political affiliation, and economic status? What do members of the climate majority want from their political and community leaders? What obstacles are standing in the way?

    The week of coverage that started on Tuesday will be followed by months of further reporting that explores additional aspects of public opinion about climate change. If most of the climate majority have no idea they are the majority, do they also not realize that defusing the climate crisis is by no means impossible? Scientists have long said that humanity possesses the tools and knowhow necessary to limit temperature rise to the Paris agreement’s aspirational target of the 1.5°C above preindustrial levels. What has been lacking is the political will to implement those tools and leave fossil fuels behind. The 89% Project will culminate in a second joint week of coverage before the COP30 United Nations climate meeting in Brazil in November.

    While it’s impossible to know how many newsrooms will participate in this week’s 89% coverage, early signs are heartening. The Guardian newspaper and the Agence France-Presse news agency have joined as lead partners of the project. Other newsrooms offering coverage include The Nation, Rolling Stone, Scientific American, and Time magazines in the U.S.; the National Observer newspaper in Canada; the Deutsche Welle global broadcaster in Germany; the Corriere della Sera newspaper in Italy; the Asahi Shimbun newspaper in Japan; and the multinational collaborative Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism based in Jordan.

    We believe the current mismatch between public will and government action amounts to a deficit in democracy. Can that deficit be addressed if the climate majority awakens to its existence? Would people elect different leaders? Buy (or not buy) different products? Would they talk differently to family, friends, and co-workers about what can be done to build a cleaner, safer future?

    The first step to answering such questions is to give the silent climate majority a voice. That will happen, finally, this week in news coverage around the world.

    This story is part of The 89 Percent Project, an initiative of the global journalism collaboration Covering Climate Now.

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    climate emergency
    Global Climate Strike In Dhaka, Bangladesh

    The 89%: New Media Collaboration Calls Attention to 'Climate Change's Silent Majority'

    "If, in fact, a majority of people in your community care about climate change, and yet elected officials aren't responding to that, that's a deficit in democracy," one of the project's organizers said.

    Olivia Rosane
    Apr 21, 2025

    According to a global survey, 89% of people worldwide want their government to do more to address the climate crisis, yet current national policies put the world on track for 3.1°C of warming.

    To explore this disconnect, Covering Climate Now (CCNow) launched the 89% Project on Monday to encourage coverage of "climate change's silent majority" and ask some key questions.

    Keep Reading
    News
    climate emergency
    ​An aerial view of repair vehicles at sunset passing near beachfront homes that burned in the Palisades Fire on January 15, 2025 in Malibu, California.

    Critics Warn Media Outlets Failing to Explain Climate Cause Behind Los Angeles Fires

    "Too much of the coverage has simply ignored the climate crisis altogether, an inexcusable failure when the scientific link between such megafires and a hotter, dryer planet is unequivocal," wrote the founders of Covering Climate Now.

    Eloise Goldsmith
    Jan 16, 2025

    Covering the who, what, when, where, and why is journalism 101. So why are too few media outlets explaining the role that the climate crisis plays in the "why" behind the fires ravaging the Los Angeles region?

    That's the central question posed in an opinion piece published in The Guardian and elsewhere on Thursday authored by Mark Hertsgaard and Kyle Pope, the founders of Covering Climate Now, a global collaboration of over 500 news outlets aimed at improving climate coverage, of which Common Dreams is a part.

    Keep Reading
    News
    climate emergency

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