Overcoming Polarization on Climate Change

Issue 127: A new study finds that people across the political spectrum will take climate change action--we need to connect this to their broader sense of identity.

The world is scorching. 2023 was the hottest year since records began in 1850 and this year is even hotter. With heat waves sweeping across the globe, there is overwhelming scientific consensus that climate change is not only real, but caused by human behavior. In a recent study we conducted with 59,440 participants from 63 countries, there was a very strong belief in climate change among people around the globe (86 out of a scale of 100).

Despite general agreement, however, there is evidence that partisan and ideological identities are a consistent barrier to the adoption of climate change mitigation policies, and this gap is especially large in countries where fossil fuel reliance is the highest. For example, US Republicans are six times more likely to dismiss the role that humans play in climate change than Democrats. And this partisan divide has only gotten larger over time.

How are we ever going to solve this problem without a sense of shared reality?

This image was from the New Yo…