Climate change is the backdrop for this year’s U.S. election as high prices, conflicts in the Middle East, artificial intelligence and other issues take center stage. But that doesn’t mean the public has forgotten about it.
More than half of Americans think climate change is a very or moderately big problem, and only a quarter think the world is capable of dealing with the challenge. New Pew Research Center Survey Findings.
Since the last time the group polled on this topic 2022Storms, heat and wildfires fueled by greenhouse gas pollution continue to damage communities and claim lives. Biden-era and legacy policies promoting clean technology and lowering emissions were quickly reversed during President Donald Trump’s second term.
Democrats and left-leaners have moved toward pessimism: 69% of them say the United States and other countries will not do enough to address risks—an 18-point jump in four years. Overall, 62% of respondents said countries cannot avoid the worst impacts of climate change, an increase of 9 percentage points.
Only one in five Republicans and right-leaning respondents said climate change is harming people, and most viewed it as a minor problem.
In a decade when the Pew Research Center asked how much the federal government should do to curb global warming, the partisan divide has never fallen below 51 points. In a 2026 poll of 3,524 adults conducted in mid-March, 87% of Democrats and 31% of Republicans supported more U.S. climate policies.
There are age differences on the right, too, with nearly half of right-leaning respondents under 30 saying the U.S. is doing too little. Among Republicans over 50, the figure was 21%, consistent with previous results.
Only 12% of respondents said they saw no evidence that the earth is warming. Nearly half, or 48%, said fossil fuel burning and other human activities are causing climate warming. These numbers have also remained stable for about a decade.
Only education on the left was associated with climate change beliefs. Democrats with graduate degrees say human activity is responsible for as much as 90 percent of global warming. For Democrats with a high school degree or less, that number drops to 63%. About 20% of Republicans across all education levels say humans cause climate change.
Among those surveyed who say climate warming is already harming people, more than two-thirds believe big companies — especially the energy industry — and the federal government have the ability to address the problem. Only one in five said they expected new technology to solve the problem within thirty years.
Copyright 2026 Bloomberg.
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