Over 50% of Americans say climate change is a serious threat; only 10% think their compatriots feel the same
That perception gap on the issue is among the highest in the world, per a new Gallup poll.
As the UK waved goodbye to one prime minister and waits expectantly to usher in a replacement who’ll become the nation’s seventh leader in 10 years, there was another hotly-anticipated event that was expected to unfold across the country’s capital: London Climate Action Week.
The event has now, in a hammer-blow of irony that could not be lost on anyone, been disrupted by “extreme heat." London temperatures have soared to around 34 degrees celsius, or 93.2°F, causing panels and other talks at Europe’s largest independent climate event to be postponed.
Heating up
Of course, it’s not just Britain where the conversation around climate change has persisted — though it’s perhaps become a little more tepid in some places than in the past — given that the annual COP summit is now into its 31st year and there were 172 major climate policy protests around the world in 2025, per the Carnegie Endowment For International Peace’s tracker.
Still, there’s a big disparity between how concerned people feel about climate change as an issue personally and how they feel others are perceiving the threat. That pattern is particularly pronounced across some of the world’s wealthiest nations, according to the Lloyd’s Register Foundation World Risk Poll, recently analyzed by Gallup.
In Portugal, exactly two-thirds of people think climate change presents a “very serious threat” to their country in the next 20 years, while just 24% guess that their fellow citizens feel that way — the highest disparity between the two answers of any nation polled. The US wasn’t far behind at all, however, as the poll showed a 41-point gulf between those who feel the threat themselves versus those who perceive that others in the country would say they’d concede that level of danger.
