Climate change news audiences: Analysis of news use and attitudes in eight countries

Dr Waqas Ejaz, Mitali Mukherjee, Dr Richard Fletcher

Executive summary

In this new report, we build on our 2022 survey to present fresh insights into how people in eight countries – Brazil, France, Germany, India, Japan, Pakistan, the UK, and the USA – access news and information about climate change in 2023. Among others, our main objective is to capture year-on-year change, if there is any, in people’s climate change news consumption patterns. Additionally, we aim to introduce new findings related to the issue of climate justice and the role of solution-oriented journalism, among other aspects.

To ensure the consistency and comparability of our work across years, we conducted our survey in the same eight countries as we did in 2022. By doing so, we remain true to our focus of taking a diverse set of countries to understand regional variations across the globe with regard to climate change news. This enables us to provide a valuable comparison between two groups: countries like France, Germany, Japan, the UK, and the USA in the Global North, and Brazil, India, and Pakistan in the Global South. In the former group, patterns of news consumption are well documented, whereas in the latter, empirical research on the subject is still in its early stages and remains under-researched, even though these regions are home to substantial populations and face heightened climate-related risks (Eckstein et al. 2021; World Bank Group 2021). Consequently, we have made a special effort to collect data from Global South nations.

It is important to note that our survey primarily relies on online data collection methods. Therefore, the data from India and Pakistan, in particular, have inherent limitations due to restricted internet access, as discussed in the methodology section. Consequently, these findings should be interpreted as, at best, representative of the online, English-speaking populations in these countries (although respondents in Pakistan had the option to complete the survey in Urdu, the majority chose the English version).

Analysing data from Brazil, France, Germany, India, Japan, Pakistan, the UK, and the USA, we find that:

In most of the eight countries there has been a slight increase in climate change news use, with just over half (55%) on average using climate change news in the previous week.
Climate news avoidance and trust in climate information from the news media have remained roughly stable, but avoidance has decreased slightly in the UK, USA, and Pakistan, as well as trust in the UK and Germany.
Scientists remain the most trusted sources of news and information about climate change, trusted by 73% on average, and respondents more often see them used as sources in the news media than any other source of information.
Over three quarters (80%) of survey respondents say they are concerned about climate change misinformation, consistent with data from 2022.
Once again, respondents think television and online (including social media and messaging apps) are where they see most climate-related misinformation. Politicians, political parties, and governments are frequently mentioned as sources of false and misleading information.
Nearly two thirds of respondents believe that news media play a significant role in influencing climate change decisions, actions by large businesses, government policies, and public attitudes, with particularly strong beliefs in Brazil, India, and Pakistan.
There is large variation in how soon respondents think people in their country will face the serious effects of climate change, with significant proportions in every country thinking the consequences are decades away at least. However, people who use climate change news on a weekly basis are considerably more likely to think that people are being affected by climate change now.
Significant disparities exist in perceptions of the impact of climate change on public health specifically, with those in Global South countries (Brazil, India, Pakistan) generally perceiving larger effects (50% or more) than those in the Global North (UK, USA, France, Germany, Japan).
Just over half of respondents think that climate change has a larger effect on poorer people (53%) and poorer countries (52%), but there is a considerable partisan disagreement on this in France, the UK, and the USA, with those leaning politically right less likely to agree.
People are more likely to think that richer countries and more polluting countries should take greater responsibility for reducing climate change, and weekly climate change news users are more likely to hold this view.
In the UK, USA, Germany and France opinion is roughly evenly split on whether direct action climate protests (e.g. blocking roads, disrupting sporting events) are covered fairly by the news media. But in Germany, the UK, and the USA opinion varies depending on whether people support or oppose the protests.
People in our survey expressed a high level of interest in various types of climate coverage, including news that discusses latest developments, positive news, and coverage presenting solutions. People did not express a clear preference for the type of solutions journalism they are most interested in.