Eight in 10 Consumers Believe All Countries Must Come Together to Combat Climate Change

Against the backdrop of the recently concluded 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) Dynata – the world’s largest first-party data platform for insights, activation, and measurement – published a new global report revealing that nearly eight in 10 people globally believe that governments need to act on, and hold one another accountable for, shared climate change goals. 

Furthermore, they believe governments, businesses, and individuals can have a greater impact if they work together in the fight against climate change. The stakes for action continue to grow, with 54% of the 12,000 people surveyed saying that a politician’s stance on climate change is a top-three issue for them at the polls, and seven in 10 feel the climate change response actions of politicians fall short of their words. 

These – and other findings – appear in Dynata’s Global Consumer Trends: The Urgent Fight Against Climate Change report, exploring the urgency for governments, businesses, and individuals to join together to respond to climate change. The report also delves further into what actions governments, businesses, and individuals can take in response to this growing threat. 

Additional highlights

Additional highlights from the report and notable results from our Asia Pacific region include:

• Belief in climate change is high: Eight-four percent of people surveyed believe climate change is real, and 69% are “100% sure” or “pretty sure” of this belief globally.
  
  Compared to the rest of the world, people in China are the least sure that climate change is real, followed by those in Japan; only 52% and 59% respectively are either entirely or pretty sure climate change is a reality. Sixty-six percent of Australians are certain whilst 77% of Indians surveyed strongly believe that climate change is a reality.

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• People feel an urgency to combat climate change, growing higher in the last five years: Seven in 10 (69%) people globally believe it is “extremely” or “very” urgent to take action to combat climate change; 65% of those calling for action to fight climate change saying that urgency has grown in the last five years.
  
  India, Italy, and Spain are amongst those who feel the highest urgency (over 80% each) versus Japan, Australia, China, and Canada feel the least urgent to combat climate change (under 65% each).

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• Time to act for businesses: Climate change believers selected investing in clean energy and sustainable businesses (60%); instituting sustainable business practices (59%); and committing to a net-zero goal for carbon emissions (53%) among the actions they want businesses to take to combat climate change. Thirty-five percent of climate change believers agree that businesses should hold the government accountable on climate change.
  
  Among the Asia Pacific countries surveyed, the top five actions that climate change believers want businesses to take are:
  
  • Investing in clean energy and sustainable businesses (57%)
  • Instituting sustainable business practices (56%)
  • Committing to a net-zero goal for carbon emissions (55%)
  • Sourcing sustainable/environmentally-friendly materials for goods/services (55%)
  • Partnering with the government on projects related to climate change [public-private partnerships] (50%)

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• Individuals can act, too: Climate change believers have specific actions they think others should take, including making “greener” purchase decisions (77%) and choosing more eco-friendly transportation methods (67%). Four in 10 think consumers should take action to influence their government’s climate policies, and 24% call for volunteering with or donating to organisations acting against climate change. Improving household energy efficiency (59%), recycling and/or composting (57%), and making more environmentally friendly purchases (54%) are the three actions that climate change believers in the Asia Pacific resonate with most.

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“Companies pursuing environmentally responsible manufacturing and business practices stand to gain from this type of demand, with 68% of global consumers and 72% of Asia Pacific consumers surveyed showing their preference to buy products and services from companies that are environmentally responsible. Over half of the consumers (53%) we talked to said they try not to support businesses whose practices contribute to climate change, and that figure rises to six in ten in our region”, said James Burge, Asia Pacific Managing Director of Dynata.

“It’s only through a collective social effort at all levels and across many nations that we will be able to effectively address the global challenge of climate change. Dynata hopes to support the discussions around this effort with our data and insights. This most recent report conclusively shows that the tide is turning across Asia Pacific and globally towards a demand for action and at all levels and that to me is a really important development…

As we have done over course of the pandemic, Dynata is able to bring our considerable data resources to bear in support of pressing causes and combine this with other efforts like tree planting initiative with Ecosia and other programs to give back.”

Global Consumer Trends: The Urgent Fight Against Climate Change report is available for download on Dynata’s website and you can access the webinar here.