A staggering 89 percent of people worldwide believe their governments should be doing more to combat climate change. Yet current policies across nations are putting the planet on track for a catastrophic 3.1°C of warming. That disconnect—between near-universal public demand and government inaction—is what Covering Climate Now (CCNow) calls a “deficit in democracy.” It’s also the focus of its new yearlong initiative: the 89% Project.
Launched to coincide with Earth Day, the 89 Percent Project aims to break what experts describe as a dangerous spiral of silence around climate action, one perpetuated by misperceptions, media neglect, and political indifference. Despite overwhelming evidence that climate concern is both widespread and intensifying, many people continue to feel isolated in their worry—an illusion that disempowers individuals and lets leaders off the hook.
“If, in fact, a majority of people in your community care about climate change, and yet elected officials aren’t responding to that, that’s a deficit in democracy,” said CCNow co-founder Kyle Pope in an interview with Common Dreams. “Why is that? What’s to be done about it? Where do we go from here?”
The 89 percent figure comes from a groundbreaking study published in Nature Climate Change in February 2024, based on Gallup World Poll data from 129,902 people across 125 countries. The findings showed that nearly nine in ten respondents wanted stronger climate action from their governments. Yet, in almost every country surveyed, individuals vastly underestimated how many of their fellow citizens felt the same way.
That misperception, experts say, is a critical part of the problem.
“Almost everybody dramatically underestimates the level of concern and support for action on climate change,” said Anthony Leiserowitz, director of the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication. “It basically refers to the fact that most of us don’t know what’s in other people’s heads.”
This phenomenon—what researchers call “pluralistic ignorance”—is fueling what sociologist Cynthia Frantz describes as a “self-fulfilling spiral of silence.” As she put it, “Currently, worrying about climate change is something people are largely doing in the privacy of their own minds.”
The result is a vast but quiet climate majority, hesitant to speak out or act because they believe they’re alone. But as Leiserowitz explained, “One of the most powerful forms of climate communication is just telling people that a majority of other people think climate change is happening, human-caused, a serious problem and a priority for action.”
In the U.S., a country often portrayed as divided on climate, recent polling shows strong and bipartisan support for environmental measures. A survey conducted by the Yale Program and George Mason University after the November 2024 election found that more than 70 percent of registered U.S. voters supported regulating carbon dioxide as a pollutant, rejoining the Paris Agreement, and expanding solar and wind energy. Globally, 69 percent of people said they would be willing to contribute 1 percent of their monthly income to fight climate change—but they believed only 43 percent of others would do the same.
This perception gap is not confined to the general public. Politicians themselves are affected. In the United States, nearly 80 percent of congressional staffers underestimated constituents’ support for limits on carbon emissions—sometimes by more than 50 percentage points.
“Perception gaps can have real consequences—they could mean that climate policies are not as ambitious as the public sentiment,” said Dr. Niall McLoughlin of the Climate Barometer research group. “If you were to unlock the perception gaps, that could move us closer to a social tipping point amongst the public on climate issues.”
The 89 Percent Project seeks to do exactly that. It builds on CCNow’s five-year history of convening climate-focused news coverage, including a 2019 initiative that generated more than 3,400 stories from over 300 partners worldwide. This year’s effort includes two major coverage weeks—one in April and another before COP30 in Brazil—as well as webinars, analysis, and ongoing support for participating newsrooms.
Major outlets including The Guardian, TIME, Scientific American, Rolling Stone, The Nation, and Agence France-Presse are among the lead collaborators. Dozens of other organizations from Canada to Japan, Italy, and across the Middle East have also joined. Any newsroom can participate by publishing a story during the coverage window and tagging it as part of the 89 percent Project.
The focus, CCNow says, should be on “the people who comprise the 89 percent: Who are they? How do their numbers vary across countries, genders, and ages? What kinds of climate action do they want governments to take, and what are the main obstacles to such action?”
The initiative isn’t only about reaching audiences—it’s also about challenging newsroom assumptions. Many editors still avoid climate coverage under the belief that it’s “too political” or that audiences aren’t interested. But Pope and his team have found the opposite to be true.
“Our orientation is, we look at everything from a media point of view, and we sort of saw it as a media problem,” Pope said. “Newsrooms kept telling us, oh, well, this is a topic that’s really divisive… and then when we looked at data, surveys from all over the world, we kept seeing that that wasn’t true.”
Part of the project’s urgency also comes from political developments. While CCNow says the effort was not prompted by Donald Trump’s reelection in 2024, Pope acknowledged that it became “more urgent as this new administration has taken a hold and has really gone on the attack on climate policy.”
In the months since Trump’s return to office, his administration has withdrawn from the Paris Agreement, slashed climate science funding, repealed environmental protections, and pushed for expanded oil and gas drilling. But according to Leiserowitz, this aggressive anti-climate agenda does not reflect the views of the American people.
“This is not what people want,” he said. “It’s pretty clear this election was not a referendum on climate change… Nobody was voting for this.”
The issue, Pope argues, isn’t a lack of public concern—it’s the failure of governments and media institutions to reflect it. “It’s also for newsrooms to internalize and say, OK, our audience really cares about this. We can’t silo it. We can’t get distracted by other things.”
International data shows similarly high support for action across G20 countries, which are responsible for 77 percent of global emissions. In China, 97 percent of people surveyed said their government should do more, and four out of five said they would give 1 percent of their income to support climate solutions. Brazil, Portugal, and Sri Lanka also ranked highly. Even in countries that scored lower—such as the United States, Russia, and Norway—strong majorities still expressed a desire for greater action.
The broader aim, according to researchers behind the 125-nation survey, is to correct misperceptions and empower citizens. “The world is united in its judgment about climate change and the need to act,” said Professor Teodora Boneva of the University of Bonn. “Our results suggest a concerted effort to correct these misperceptions could be powerful intervention, yielding large, positive effects.”
Pope sees the media as essential to that intervention. “Most people are not going out and reading the [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] report on their own or conducting climate science experiments in their backyard,” Leiserowitz added. “The media is one of the primary ways that anybody who knows about, learns about, becomes engaged with this issue.”
CCNow believes that by uniting journalists around the world in shared coverage, the 89% Project can help activate the “silent majority” and drive democratic accountability. And while the political atmosphere, particularly in the United States, may be hostile, Pope emphasized that the project is rooted in hope.
“I think one of the reasons that the 89 percent framing is appealing to us is it’s not a fear-based idea,” he said. “In fact, it’s the opposite. It’s like we’re all in this together… So let’s not cower.”
To get involved or for more information, visit The 89 Percent Project—Covering Climate Now.
COMMENTS