There is near-universal global public support for climate action, yet people systematically underestimate the commitment of their peers, according to a new study.
The research, published in Nature Climate Change, is based on a globally-representative sample of nearly 130,000 people in 125 countries.
It finds that 86% of people “support pro-climate social norms” and 89% would like their governments to do more to tackle warming. Moreover, 69% say they would be willing to contribute 1% of their income to addressing climate change.
Yet respondents also “systematically underestimate the willingness of their fellow citizens to act”, according to the paper, creating a potentially challenging “perception gap”.
Carbon Brief interviewed the authors of the study to find out more. The questions and their answers are reproduced in full, below. An abridged version of the transcript was first published in DeBriefed, Carbon Brief’s weekly email newsletter. Sign up for free.
Carbon Brief: Your survey of nearly 130,000 people in 125 countries found “almost universal” support (86%) for climate action, with 89% wanting more from governments. Were you surprised?
Prof Peter Andre, Prof Teodora Boneva, Prof Felix Chopra and Prof Armin Falk: While we did expect to find high levels of approval for climate action in some of the countries that we studied, we were indeed surprised to find that the percentage of the population approving of pro-climate social norms and demanding more political action from their national government is very high in almost all countries in our sample. In 119 of 125 countries, the proportion of individuals who state that people in their country “should try to fight global warming” exceeds two-thirds. In more than half the countries in our sample, the demand for more government action even exceeds 90%.
We were probably misled by the same pessimism that we found to be so widespread across the globe. 69% of the world’s population is willing to contribute 1% of their monthly income to fight global warming. A broad majority of people across the globe is willing to pay a personal cost. In fact, in 114 out of 125 countries, a majority of respondents is willing to fight climate change. However, in 110 out of 125 countries, the majority thinks that they are in the minority: When asked about how many people in their country are willing to contribute, most respondents think that less than half of their fellow citizens would be willing to contribute.
[The figure below, taken from the new paper, shows: (top left) the share of respondents willing to contribute none, up to 1% or at least 1% of their income to tackling climate change; (top right) the same result broken down by country; (middle panel) the share believing that “people should try to fight global warming”; (lower panel) the share wanting governments to do more.]
CB: A large majority (69%) said they would be willing to contribute 1% of their income to fight global warming. Do you think this would hold for specific policies, such as a carbon tax?
PA, TB, FC and AF: The popular support for specific policies will depend on many details that we had to abstract from in the global survey. How effective is the policy? Is it perceived as fair? Who supports the policy in the public debate? So one cannot simply equate support in the survey with support for specific policy proposals. In a representative US sample, we do find that the general demand for more political action is strongly correlated with demand for specific climate policies, such as a carbon tax on fossil fuels, regulatory limits on the CO2 emissions of coal-fired plants, or funding for research on renewable energy. Overall, we think the important conclusion is the following: The large majority of people across the world expresses a general willingness to make costly contributions to fight climate change. This means that we can move the debate forward and focus on how we can best tap into this broad willingness to contribute to best tackle the challenges posed by climate change.
CB: There has been a resurgence of anti-climate rhetoric from politicians and the media in many countries. Do you think public opinion has shifted since your survey in 2021-22?
PA, TB, FC and AF: We do not detect any clear time trend within our samples from 2021 and 2022, but do not have data for the most recent months. If we were to speculate, we would not want to fall victim to the same pessimism one more time. We would expect that a large majority would still be in favor of climate action today, and this seems to be in line with more recent research. The year 2023 has been confirmed as the warmest calendar year in global temperature data records going back to 1850. In our study, we find that annual average temperatures strongly correlate with the proportion of people being willing to support climate action. Our best guess is that the support for climate action has increased rather than decreased in the last two years.
CB: You found stronger willingness to contribute among respondents in poorer, hotter and more vulnerable countries. Why do you think richer people are less willing to pay their way?
PA, TB, FC and AF: Two potential explanations come to mind. First, richer countries are still strongly dependent on fossil fuels. The adaptation costs could therefore be perceived as relatively high and the required lifestyle changes as too drastic. At the same time, richer countries may be more resilient: A country’s GDP per capita reflects its economic capacity to cope with climate change. The most direct and immediate consequences are likely to be concentrated in more vulnerable countries, which have fewer resources to mitigate the negative consequences of the climate crisis. However, it’s important to stress the positive message: the support for climate action is large even in the richest countries in our sample. In the wealthiest quintile of countries, the average proportion of people willing to contribute 1% is 62%.
CB: You found people systematically underestimated the willingness of their peers to contribute to climate action. Why do you think that is – and how could it be changed?
PA, TB, FC and AF: The reasons for this perception gap are likely to be manifold. In the past, media and public discussions have given a lot of focus to the small number of climate change sceptics and have fallen prey to the efforts of special interest groups. Moreover, climate change is difficult to tackle. People might mistakenly infer that the slow progress in combating climate change is due to a widespread lack of personal commitment.
In our view, correcting this perception gap is more important than understanding its origin. Humans are (what behavioral scientists call) “conditional cooperators”. They contribute more to the public good if they believe that others contribute as well. For this reason, pessimism about others’ contributions is harmful. It can constitute a critical obstacle for climate action. We thus conclude in the paper that, “[r]ather than echoing the concerns of a vocal minority that opposes any form of climate action, we need to effectively communicate that the vast majority of people around the world are willing to act against climate change and expect their national government to act”. We hope that our study sparks a debate on this topic, and increases awareness about the large global support for climate action.
The post Interview: Why global support for climate action is ‘systematically underestimated’ appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Interview: Why global support for climate action is ‘systematically underestimated’
When the Turkish COP31 presidency presented its priorities to international business leaders for the first time in New York in September, among those invited to give the private sector’s first response was Ali Koç, scion of one of Türkiye’s wealthiest families.
On stage, the vice chair of the board of Koç Holding said the family company, which weeks earlier had been announced as one of the top sponsors for the UN climate summit, can be seen as “quite exemplary” for its climate record.
What Koç did not mention was that the group’s biggest money-making arm – Türkiye’s largest oil refiner Tüpraş – plans to keep running its refineries “at maximum potential”. Nor did he say that, in 2025, both parent company and subsidiary cut their 2030 climate targets to a level they had already nearly achieved, as Climate Home News’ analysis of company records reveals.
The decision to hand Koç Holding a prominent role at COP31 – the company is also the summit’s “Global Business Partner” – has reignited a long-running controversy over the platforming of fossil fuel interests at the annual UN climate conference.
It has also thrown into question how COP sponsors are chosen and screened. The hosting agreement between the Turkish government and the UN climate secretariat (UNFCCC) says that a partner company’s “climate integrity” should be taken into account.
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But how that test is applied is unclear and the process for picking sponsors remains largely opaque. The Turkish COP31 presidency has not published its selection criteria, nor the financial terms of any of its partnership agreements, including Koç’s. The UNFCCC declined to clarify how it advises on such deals.
Campaigners have long argued that accepting sponsorship from polluting companies is wrong because it gives them a global stage, visibility and access to policymakers at talks that are meant to move the world away from fossil fuels, and tarnishes the reputation of the COPs.
Koç’s energy division, which is dominated by oil refiner Tüpraş, accounted for three-quarters of the parent firm’s income in the first half of 2026.
“How was Koç Holding ever chosen as a COP31 sponsor? Any corporation that makes most of its money from oil refining should not qualify as sustainable,” said Pascoe Sabido, a campaigner at Corporate Europe Observatory, which exposes company lobbying. “This is hugely embarrassing for the UNFCCC and its climate integrity check, which doesn’t appear to be worth the paper it’s written on.”
Koç Holding “is not just standing still but walking backwards”, he told Climate Home News.
Koç Holding and Tüpraş did not reply to multiple requests for comment. The UNFCCC secretariat and the Turkish COP31 presidency declined to respond to questions from Climate Home News on the sponsorship agreement.
Oil refining windfall
Türkiye’s biggest industrial group, Koç Holding has stakes in several key sectors of the economy, spanning vehicle manufacturing in a joint venture with Ford to electronics, home appliances and banking.
But the conglomerate’s crown jewel is oil refiner Tüpraş, which Koç controls. Last year its four refineries turned crude oil into 26.8 million tonnes of petrol, diesel, jet fuel and other products, enough to fill about 36 Olympic swimming pools every day.
The company plans to raise its production to 29 million tonnes in 2026 – already a bumper year so far with soaring profits, thanks to sky-rocketing refining margins driven by a crunch in global oil processing capacity caused by the Middle East crisis.
The oil business boom sits awkwardly with the climate and energy transition plans Koç and Tüpraş unveiled in 2021, when both pledged to become carbon neutral by 2050. Then, Tüpraş set out its aim to become “a leading carbon-neutral energy company”.
Despite these promises, in 2025, both companies lowered their targets for cutting emissions from their own operations by 2030, from 27% to 20% below 2017 levels. Tüpraş also cut its 2035 goal from 35% to 25%. The company still technically retains its long-term target of carbon neutrality by 2050, but the new plan will require much more drastic cuts after 2035.
Lowering the climate bar
Tüpraş blamed its weakening of climate ambition on “changing market dynamics, economic conditions and technological developments”. In a presentation announcing the revision to investors, the refiner said the energy outlook had changed since 2021.
The reasons it listed included elevated geopolitical tensions, increased investment in oil and gas extraction, which it said showed refined fuels remain vital for energy security – and even the depletion of the carbon budget to keep global warming to 1.5C.
Its parent company Koç pointed the finger at the slow pace of green hydrogen development, which the group said now had a “low feasibility” of transforming the energy sector after it had previously pinned much of its transition plan on the sustainable fuel.
The Turkish company’s new 2030 targets are certainly within reach. Tüpraş had already cut its operational emissions by 17% from 2017 levels by 2025, with nearly all of that progress achieved before the transition plan was unveiled, while Koç had reduced them by 16%.
The softer targets also exclude the bulk of the group’s climate impact. Most of its emissions come not from its own refineries and factories but from the products it sells: petrol, diesel and jet fuel burned in the engines of cars or planes.
These so-called Scope 3 emissions make up about 97% of Koç’s carbon footprint. They rose by around a sixth between 2019 and 2024, and neither Koç nor Tüpraş has set a target to cut them.
Efe Baysal, Türkiye team lead at campaign group 350.org, said there is a “clear contradiction” between talking about climate action while weakening emission targets and seeing emissions from the use of petroleum products keep rising.
“If the company is serious about the transition, it needs a clear plan to wind down fossil fuel operations, rather than relying on efficiency measures and technologies that let business as usual continue,” she told Climate Home News.
‘Sustainable refining’ push
Tüpraş’s updated transition plan rules out expanding its oil refineries, but commits to “maintaining the existing capacity” and running it “at maximum potential”. Oil refining is expected to remain its main source of earnings for years to come. Koç listed “growing oil demand and diesel deficit” in Türkiye as a competitive advantage for its energy business in a pitch to investors last month.
The biggest component of the Tüpraş transition plan is what the company calls “sustainable refining”. It plans to invest $3.9 billion between 2025 and 2035 in programmes to modernise its refineries, improve their energy efficiency and bring down the direct emissions they generate. The company is also shifting some of its production to petrochemicals, which it expects to reduce its Scope 3 emissions.
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Alongside these “sustainable refining” efforts, Tüpraş is also investing in renewable power.
Four years ago, it bought Entek, which produces electricity primarily from six hydropower plants and one gas plant. Since the acquisition, Tüpraş has started building a utility-scale solar farm in Romania and a wind power plant with storage in Türkiye, alongside smaller solar energy installations at some of its refineries. A dozen more renewable energy projects are currently in the pipeline, according to its latest annual report.
In a self-declared bid to become “Türkiye’s leading producer of zero-carbon electricity”, Tüpraş wants to reach installed capacity of 1.6 gigawatts (GW) by 2030 – a target it raised in its updated plan – and 2.5GW by 2035. The Turkish government has committed to rolling out 120GW of wind and solar capacity nationwide by then.
Setback for green fuels
Tüpraş plans to supply most of its low-carbon electricity to run its future production plants for green hydrogen, an alternative fuel that can replace fossil fuels in some heavy industries and long-distance transport.
A few years ago, green hydrogen looked set to become a key pillar of the global energy transition, with companies pitching visionary projects and governments rolling out strategies for the fuel to decarbonise economies. But inflated forecasts, high costs and weak demand have led to a reality check for prospective producers like Tüpraş.
The Turkish refiner significantly scaled back its green hydrogen plans last year. While it originally hoped to start producing the clean fuel in 2025, it now targets a first pilot project by 2030 with commercial large-scale production not expected before 2035. That’s primarily because the cost of electrolysers, the machines that split water into hydrogen and oxygen, has risen fourfold since its original projections, the company said.
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Tüpraş’s ambition to become Türkiye’s leading producer of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) has also seen a partial rethink. The firm originally said it would convert by 2026 a unit in its sprawling oil refinery in the port city of Izmir into a plant that would produce SAF from waste cooking oil into “green” jet fuel.
But it is now planning to build a dedicated plant which is expected to be commissioned towards the end of 2028. That means its SAF output will be added to its existing fossil fuel refining capacity rather than replacing any of it.
Dividends dwarf green spending
Under its updated blueprint, Tüpraş plans to invest $4.35 billion in zero-carbon power, SAF and green hydrogen by 2035. Last year, it spent $137 million on activities that qualify as green under EU rules, leaving much ground to make up in the next 10 years. Most of its green investment in 2025 went on solar and wind farms, and a quarter on a unit making propylene, a refinery by-product used to produce plastic packaging and bottle caps.
Over the same year, it paid out about five times as much – roughly $740 million – to shareholders, under a policy of distributing around 80% of its profits. About half went to Koç Holding, which in turn paid its own shareholders some $460 million. The Koç family and companies it controls hold the majority of the group.
Kelly Trout, research director at energy think-tank Oil Change International, said a company like Koç should not be the face of the COP31 climate summit as it doesn’t pass the test of “climate integrity” the UN requires of a sponsor.
The hosting agreement struck between Türkiye and the UNFCCC says that the government has to consult the secretariat of the UN body to obtain advice on which “entities of concern” it should not conclude sponsorship or partnership agreements with. The document adds that the advice should give appropriate consideration to the partner’s climate integrity, but it does not specify how that should be judged.
‘Climate integrity’ mystery
Climate Home News asked the UNFCCC and the Turkish COP31 presidency if this process was followed for the Koç Holding sponsorship, but had not received a response at the time of publication.
The same provision featured in the host country agreement for COP29 in Azerbaijan, according to a leaked copy published by Human Rights Watch.
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The clean energy arm of state-owned oil and gas company SOCAR was named “Energy Transition Partner” for that summit, alongside other firms which an investigation from the Organized Crime and Corruption Project (OCCRP) found were owned by the country’s ruling family or people associated with them.
Koç is not the first fossil fuel-linked company to bankroll a UN climate summit. At COP24 in the Polish coal-mining city of Katowice in 2018, sponsors included the state coal power company PGE and the coking coal miner JSW.
‘A real story to tell’
COP sponsors typically get the right to promote themselves inside the conference venue and appear at official events. When it unveiled the agreement, the COP31 presidency called Koç Holding a “vital partner” in its efforts to unite the public and the private sector “to demonstrate Türkiye’s unwavering commitment to global climate action”.
The presidency declined to answer Climate Home News’ questions on how Koç Holding will be involved in the summit.
Koç itself has revealed little about its plans for the Antalya talks. When the deal was announced, the group said it would use the summit to share its experience of turning climate solutions into “concrete business results” and to forge new partnerships.
Speaking at a high-level roundtable on energy at UN headquarters in New York last month, Ali Koç said the industrial group has “a real story to tell”, having undertaken a “comprehensive transformation process in climate matters”.
Campaigners, however, want companies that retain their high-emitting businesses to be excluded from the COP climate summits and have long demanded an “accountability framework” to protect the negotiations from fossil fuel influence.
“If the UNFCCC and its secretariat wants to salvage a bit of credibility, the UNFCCC needs to urgently address conflicts of interest in the UN talks,” said Corporate Europe Observatory’s Sabido.
The post Turkish giant sponsoring COP31 cut climate goals then cashed in on oil boom appeared first on Climate Home News.
Turkish giant sponsoring COP31 cut climate goals then cashed in on oil boom
Three countries have been named by the Paris Agreement’s compliance committee for failing to submit a nationally determined contribution (NDC) and repeatedly snubbing offers of help with their climate plans.
After months of internal debate over whether to identify serial non-responders, the Paris Agreement’s Implementation and Compliance Committee (PAICC) named the three countries which have failed to engage with it over their NDCs on Friday.
It named Democratic Republic of Congo, Senegal and North Korea in a footnote of its annual report, adding that it decided to name them “with a view to facilitating engagement”, adding that representatives of the three nations had been invited to its meeting in early 2027 “with the purpose of identifying any challenges and constraints”.
“The Committee noted the importance of Parties engaging with the Committee in a timely manner, while noting that some delays may be due to the national capabilities and circumstances of the Parties”, the report said.