Climate change may be nonsense, a giant conspiracy, a fraud and other things to people like Donald Trump and Tony Abbott – but it’s not to the American public – nor the Australian one.

Recently the Center for Climate Change Communication at George Mason University published a major report – Climate Change in the American Mind: Beliefs & Attitudes.

The report found that Americans who think global warming is happening outnumber those who think it is not by a ratio of more than 5 to 1 (72% versus 13%). However, 85% of Americans either underestimate how many Americans are worried or don’t know enough to say.

This is hardly surprising giving the barrage of misinformation coming from the White House and fossil fuel lobbyists. They don’t get much help from the media either as only 17% of Americans say they hear about global warming in the media ‘at least once a week’. This is the lowest percentage since the question was first asked in 2015.

A majority are aware that global warming is mostly human-caused and 64% are somewhat worried and 31% who think global warming is affecting the weather in the US. That includes 12% who think weather is being affected a lot.

Majorities of Americans think global warming is affecting many extreme weather events or related impacts in the US. These include extreme heat (74%), wildfires (72%), droughts (72%), hurricanes (68%), air pollution (68%), flooding (68%), water shortages (66%), air pollution (61%), flooding (68%), electricity power outages (61%) and disease cause by mosquitoes, and ticks such as Lyme Disease and West Nile Virus (58%).

In Australia the Monash Climate Change Communication Research Hub has been undertaking a wide variety of research for some years.

The Monash research is not directly comparable to – and is older than – the George Mason research. But the results are staggering to say the least – with Australian attitudes lagging the US back then.

But their research does find that since 2011 Australians are increasingly alarmed, less disengaged, and less doubtful, but with little change in dismissive attitudes regarding climate change according to an analysis based on a survey of public beliefs and attitudes.

In 2022 (the latest attitudinal research on the Monash website)  31% of Australians said they were alarmed about climate change, increasing from 14% in 2011; 27% of Australians are concerned about climate change, decreasing from 31% in 2011; 23% of Australians are cautious about climate change, decreasing from 27% in 2011; just 2% of Australians are disengaged with climate change, down from 6% in 2011; 9% of Australians are doubtful about climate change, decreasing from 15% in 2011; and, 9% of Australians are dismissive about climate change, only 1% higher than in 2011.

The research found that women were slightly more active on climate change than men. Overall, more women reported taking action on climate change than men. While similar proportions of men and women reported taking ‘a great deal’ of action, more men reported taking no action than women.

A more recent (2025) Ipsos study provides an updated view on Australians’ attitudes towards the global climate crisis and the transition to net zero emissions. It undertook the study in 32 countries.

More than half (56%) of Australians agreed that if individuals don’t act now to combat climate change, we will be failing future generations.

Agreement with the statement has been steady over the last three years, following a sharp drop in 2022. Australia was lower, however, than the global country average which was 64% across 32 countries. Concern was greatest in the Philippines (82%), Indonesia (81%) and Mexico (80%).

More than half of Australians (56%) also believe the nation should do more in the fight against climate change.  Again, this is in line with 2024, but down marginally on 2023 (60%) and below the global country average of 62%.

Like many countries around the world there is limited belief in Australia that the government has a clear plan in place for how it, businesses and the population are going to work together to tackle climate change.

Only 28% of Australians surveyed agreed we have a clear plan, whereas 34% disagreed, with the remainder uncertain.  Australia again was worse than the global country average of 32%.

Interestingly, our belief in the government’s commitment has been somewhat volatile; it is higher than last year (24%) after declining from 30% in 2023 and 37% in 2022, which was a sharp rise from 29% in 2021.