Taking an unconventional approach to conduct the largest-ever poll on climate change, the United Nations’ Development Program and the University of Oxford surveyed 1.2 million people across 50 countries from October to December of 2020 through ads distributed in mobile gaming apps. The survey found that 64 percent of people think climate change is a global emergency and only 10% think world leaders are doing enough to address it. The number of people who considered climate change and emergency was even higher (69%) among those ages 14 to 18.
The survey also asked respondents to rank 18 specific policies to address climate change, and found that the most popular policies were restoring forests, using renewable energy, and using climate-friendly farming techniques. “There is a groundswell of people that are saying even during a pandemic that climate change is an emergency and here’s how we want to solve it,” Cassie Flynn, UNDP’s strategic adviser on climate change and head of its Climate Promise initiative, told Al Jazeera. (Al Jazeera, Bloomberg, Guardian, Reuters, NBC, BBC, Axios, The Independent, New Scientist, MarketWatch; U.S. polling.