The Guardian

About 89% of the public want their governments to do more to tackle the climate crisis – but don’t know they’re the majority.

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People march as they take part in a strike to demand action on the global climate crisis on 20 September 2019 in New York City. Photograph: Spencer Platt/Getty Images.

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. (...)

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. (...)

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. (...)

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 non-profit 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. (...)

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?

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Tags: #english #climate #climate change #climate crisis #extreme weather #media #news #journalism #journalist #democracy