Artefacts of a
Burning World

Opinionated collection of 40 articles, films, podcasts and other artefacts related to the climate crisis.

Study

Political divisions on climate change

By Jacob Poushter, Moira Fagan, and Sneha Gubbala
Graph showing the percentage of people who say global climate change is a major threat to their country,
among the political left, center and right in U.S., Australia, Canada, Germany, Sweden, Netherlands, Poland, Belgium, Spain, UK, Israel, Italy, France and South Korea.

The Pew Research Center released a chart (page 9) illustrating the percentage of people who perceive global climate change as a major threat to their country, segmented by political orientation: left, center, and right. This reveals intriguing differences among countries. In nations like South Korea, France, and Italy, climate change is widely regarded as common sense, almost irrespective of political affiliation. Conversely, in the United States, Australia, and Canada, views on this issue are heavily influenced by political orientation. Another noteworthy finding is Israel, which stands out as the only country where neither side of the political spectrum views climate change as a major threat. Additionally, it is unique in that the center demonstrates more concern about climate change than the left and right, whereas in other countries, the perceived threat tends to increase from right to left.

The results can be viewed as part of the broader phenomenon of the politicization of science. The graphic, also available on Wikimedia Commons, has been utilized in several other Wikipedia articles.

The study itself also examined numerous other factors such as gender and age, and compared people’s views on climate change to the spread of false information, cyberattacks, the global economy, and infectious diseases.