Scientists’ understanding of how climate change and habitat loss could drive plant and fungi extinctions is being hamstrung by knowledge gaps in how many species currently exist, a new report warns.
More than 90% of fungi have yet to be found and formally described by scientists, according to a new report from the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.
The “State of the World’s Plants and Fungi” report, which is based on both peer-reviewed and preliminary studies, also says that almost half of all flowering plant species could be at risk of extinction.
Habitat and land-use changes are the biggest threat to plants and fungi, but climate change is expected to become an even larger issue in the future, the director of science at Kew tells Carbon Brief
Below, Carbon Brief outlines five key findings from the report.
- Three in four unknown plant species are at risk of extinction
- Climate change is having ‘detrimental’ impacts on fungi
- Plants are currently going extinct 500 times faster than before humans existed
- Scientists have assessed the risk of extinction for less than 1% of known fungi species
- Almost half of flowering plant species are under threat
1. Three in four unknown plant species are at risk of extinction
Thousands of new plant and fungi species are named by scientists each year, but many still remain unnamed.
Around 90% of fungi species have yet to be described, making this formal identification process particularly “urgent” for fungi, the report notes. It estimates that it would take 750-1,000 years to name all of the remaining unknown fungi species.
Thousands of plants remain unnamed, including up to 100,000 “vascular” plant species. (Vascular plants are a large group of plants that are characterised by having a vascular system for transporting water. This includes trees, shrubs, grasses and flowering plants.)
More than three in four plant species that have not yet been formally described by scientists are likely threatened with extinction, the report says.
The new research by Kew scientists analysed data from the World Checklist of Vascular Plants and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) red list of threatened species – a global assessment of the extinction risk status of different animals, plants and fungi. The report was launched during a three-day conference held in Kew Gardens in London this week.
The researchers examined the links between the year a plant species was formally described and its extinction risk.
The findings, outlined in the chart below, show that the later a species is formally identified and described by science, the higher chance it has of being deemed at risk.
Based on this finding, Kew scientists are calling for all newly described plant species to be “presumed threatened with extinction unless proven otherwise”, the report says.
The IUCN extinction criteria used does not give a timeframe estimate for when an extinction is likely to occur.
Understanding extinction is “critical to conserving biodiversity”, the report adds. But unless formal naming accelerates, it says, “we are in danger of losing species before they have been described”.
This would mean “losing all of the potential that that species has”, Dr Matilda Brown, a conservation science analyst at Kew, said at the launch of the report.
The director of science at Kew, Prof Alexandre Antonelli, says that unless there is a “real shift” in trends, the number of unknown species at risk “will be even higher” in future.
He tells Carbon Brief that this would result in “basically all the new species that are found being threatened”. He adds:
“It just takes time to formally assess species and that timeline could be fatal basically because most resources for conservation are not allocated until you have a formal threat categorisation of a species. Therefore, we think that it’s very sensible to recommend all [undescribed] species be treated as such.”
The number of threatened plants has risen “shockingly” in recent years, says Dr Martin Cheek, a senior research leader at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. In the report, he writes:
“When I started out as a taxonomist 30 years ago, you wouldn’t really even consider that a species you were publishing might go extinct; you just assumed it was going to still be around in the wild.
“Now, you might work out that you have [a] new species and go and look for its natural habitat only to not find any at all.”
2. Climate change is having ‘detrimental’ impacts on fungi
The main threat to both plant and fungi species is habitat loss and land-use change in the form of forestry, agriculture or residential and commercial development.
For example, timber production can reduce areas of older, natural forest, which can leave behind less deadwood and fewer old trees for fungi to populate.
Climate change is having “detrimental” impacts on fungi in different ways, the report says, with changes in temperature and moisture levels having a direct impact.
There have already been widespread plant and animal population extinctions caused by climate change, detected in almost half of 976 species examined, according to the UN’s authority on climate science, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
The IPCC also says that one in 10 species is likely to face a “very high” risk of extinction at 2C of global warming, the upper limit of the Paris Agreement. This rises to 12% at 3C, 13% at 4C and 15% at 5C.
Fungal diversity depends on plants, so any climate-related habitat change that negatively impacts plants “in turn affects their co-existing fungi”, the report says.
Antonelli explains that there is a certain “shortage of knowledge” on the specific role of climate change in extinction risks for many plant and fungi species.
However, climate change is “tremendously” significant to extinction risks and its impact is “expected to increase over time” to possibly become the biggest risk in future, Antonelli adds. He tells Carbon Brief:
“Every time a species is assessed, the experts assessing it will determine whether climate change is or is not a contributing factor to its threat.
“In many cases, the real acute changes we are seeing are in terms of habitat degradation and deforestation, or destruction of grasslands. But it’s harder to really know or predict how much climate change is going to affect particular species because there has not been [as much] experimental research testing that.”
He says more research is needed to test the effects of drought, heatwaves, extreme weather events and gradually increasing mean temperatures on species’ “fertility or seed prediction or dispersal”.
There are other ways climate change can affect extinction risks for plants and fungi, such as by driving increased droughts or reducing resilience to new diseases, Antonelli notes:
“Even though pathogens and disease are a separate category in the threat assessments, those two could be interplaying.”
The graphic below shows the different predictors of plant extinction risk and their significance in risk predictions. The main risk identified in the report is the number of “botanical countries” in which a species is present – an area used to define a plant’s distribution that may diverge from official country lines. This is because their area of inhabitance is already limited to begin with.
Brown says that “people aren’t taking extinction seriously enough”. She adds in the report:
“We wanted to show that extinction is being underrated and underestimated, and that we need to do something about it.”
Antonelli says that there are other climate benefits to increasing knowledge of plants and fungi, including understanding the different carbon storage abilities of species.
A recent study estimated that fungi attached to plant roots each year remove 13bn tonnes of CO2 from the atmosphere, the equivalent of around a third of annual fossil-fuel emissions.
The authors noted that this estimate is based on the best available evidence, but should still be “interpreted with caution”.
3. Plants are currently going extinct 500 times faster than before humans existed
On average, more than two plant species have gone extinct each year for the past 250 years, according to a 2019 study cited in the report.
This is 500 times faster than the “background extinction rate” – the rate of extinctions absent from human interference. Plants that were scientifically described more recently are becoming extinct twice as fast as those described before 1900, the study adds.
Nearly 600 plant species have been driven to extinction in modern times – but almost as many have been rediscovered after being declared extinct.
The map below shows the geographic distribution of recorded plant extinctions that have occurred in recent centuries. Darker colours indicate a higher number of extinctions. The study notes that the pattern is “strikingly similar” to that of animal extinctions, with a disproportionate number of extinctions occurring on islands.
Nearly every recorded plant species that has gone extinct was found only in a single area or region.
The Kew report says that these “endemic” plant species may be “particularly affected by habitat destruction and climate change” as their ranges are small to begin with.
Just 10 nations host more than half (55%) of endemic plant species, the report adds, with Brazil, Australia and China hosting the highest number.
The report says this is a significant point for countries to understand the “extent to which the unique species they host are threatened with extinction” and to include this in their conservation strategies.
Other studies have put the modern extinction rate closer to 1,000 times faster than pre-human extinction rates. And still others predict that this could rise to 10,000 times faster, if all species that are currently “threatened” go extinct within the next century.
Brown notes that a lot of human-caused changes to biodiversity patterns are “leading to homogenisation”. She adds in the report:
“By carting species around the world and losing unique threatened species, we are making regions that were once really distinct much more similar, so we are blurring the edges of our global biogeographical regions.”
4. Scientists have assessed the risk of extinction for less than 1% of known fungi species
“Fungal interactions are absolutely essential to ecosystem health,” Antonelli tells Carbon Brief.
Around 155,000 fungi species have been documented in scientific literature. But, of these, only 625 known fungi species have had their extinction threat assessed by the IUCN Red List – just 0.4%.
Over the past two decades, a concerted effort by scientists and hobbyists has seen the number of fungi species evaluated on the IUCN red list go from just two in 2003 to a predicted 1,000 by the end of this year.
The report estimates that there are 2.5m fungi species around the world, meaning only 0.02% have had their global extinction threat level assessed.
Bridging this gap, the report says, is “challenging but possible”.
More than 20,000 fungi and lichen species have had their extinction threat level assessed nationally – with a strong bias towards assessments in the global north. These national-level “red lists” can help policymakers identify priority areas for conservation and guide decision-making around land management.
The image below shows the number of IUCN red-list assessments for different groups of organisms. It shows that fungi are by far the least assessed organism.
The report calls for increased engagement with communities and citizen science projects to help document the as-yet-unnamed species.
Dr Kiran Dhanjal-Adams, postdoctoral researcher at Kew, notes in the report that, although many species have not been formally described by science, they “are, in fact, well known by Indigenous communities”. He says:
“Species extinctions and cultural extinctions are inextricably interlinked. With the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework [GBF] highlighting the importance of Indigenous and local communities in conservation, we have the basis for strengthening partnerships and increasing our capacity to describe species in a way that can help raise conservation interest and funds to support local communities, as well as shedding light on ‘darkspots’.”
The new report identifies 32 plant “darkspots” – areas estimated to be the most lacking in information on plant diversity and distribution. These include Colombia and New Guinea.
5. Almost half of flowering plant species are under threat
The Kew report says that 45% of all known flowering plant species are potentially threatened with extinction.
This figure and others outline the “scale” of the “biodiversity crisis”, Antonelli tells Carbon Brief, adding:
“I am absolutely struck. I think it’s a disaster and it’s a really extremely serious situation. But, that said, we do know there are solutions and we are absolutely confident that we can turn this around.”
Scientists used a dataset of more than 53,000 red-listed species to also train a model to predict extinction risks of all the unassessed flowering plant species, the report explains.
Their findings indicate that “epiphytes” – plants that grow on other plants – are the “most threatened plant form”.
The report helps to address some “basic questions” about biodiversity and furthering understanding of species numbers, locations, threats and support needs, Antonelli says.
This information is “fundamental” to meeting the global goals and targets aimed to halt and reverse biodiversity loss by the end of this decade. These were agreed between almost every country in the world at the COP15 biodiversity summit last year. Antonelli tells Carbon Brief:
“All species are important and invaluable to ecosystems, but I think there’s a real danger of not being able to create the baseline information about plants on time for those priorities for conservation and restoration to be designed.”
The post Kew report: Five key extinction risks facing the world’s plants and fungi appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Kew report: Five key extinction risks facing the world’s plants and fungi
Climate Change
‘Ride the wave of momentum’: Australia announces once-in-a-decade Marine Parks Network review
In response to the federal government announcing its once-in-a-decade review of Australia’s Marine Parks Network, the following lines can be attributed to Elle Lawless, Senior Campaigner at Greenpeace Australia Pacific:
“Greenpeace Australia Pacific welcomes today’s announcement that the Albanese Government will review Australia’s Commonwealth Marine Parks Network. This is a rare, once-in-a-decade opportunity to strengthen our marine parks and ban industrial fishing in Australia’s marine protected areas.
“Australians would be appalled to know that more than half of Australia’s Marine Parks Network currently allows for extractive industries, like longlining, bottom trawling and oil and gas mining. These so-called ‘protected’ areas were designed to safeguard our beloved ocean wildlife and underwater ecosystems – that is what Australians expect. Damaging industrial industries should not be given a free pass to trawl, fish, drill or extract from our marine parks.”
“With the first Ocean COP just around the corner, and off the back of Australia’s move to ratify the Global Ocean Treaty earlier this year, the Australian government has a unique opportunity to ride the wave of this momentum and solidify itself as a true global ocean leader.
“Greenpeace Australia Pacific is calling for industrial activities to be banned from our protected waters and for at least 30% of Australia’s ocean to be protected as ocean sanctuaries. This review presents a rare opportunity to create more ocean sanctuaries, true blue havens where ocean life can recover, thrive and repopulate the surrounding waters.”
—ENDS—
‘Ride the wave of momentum’: Australia announces once-in-a-decade Marine Parks Network review
In recent days, prominent climate sceptics and rightwing commentators have shared charts on social media incorrectly implying that Europe is having its “quietest” year for wildfires in 2026.
These include Dr Matthew Wielicki, a former University of Alabama geochemist and self-described “professor in exile”, who was recently appointed by the Trump administration to lead the US Global Change Research Program.
However, these charts paint a misleading picture as they are skewed by encompassing the entirety of Russia in the data – including the vast plains of Siberia.
These charts also use data that include fires that are deliberately lit to manage cropland, which is a declining practice across much of Europe.
In this factcheck, Carbon Brief shows that the area burned by wildfires across the European Union in 2026 is second only to 2022 for this time of year.
The latest data from the European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS) also shows that France has set a new modern record for area burned and Spain’s wildfire season is among the worst on record.
The fires have displaced more than a third of a million people across south-western Europe, while an impending heatwave has also raised fears of the fires worsening in the coming days.
‘Quietest year’
On 27 July, as wildfires raged across multiple European countries, former Conservative peer and climate-sceptic commentator Matt Ridley posted on Twitter that “2026 is the quietest year for wildfires in Europe by some distance”.
Ridley, who sits on the academic advisory council of the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF), a UK-based climate-sceptic lobby group that refuses to reveal the sources of its funding, was responding to an article by Daily Telegraph columnist Tim Stanley.
Stanley’s column, headlined: “Climate change is real – and the right needs to get serious about it”, warned:
“This is no longer a matter of speculation: the wildfires of Europe, pitiless and persistent, are the way we live now.”
Ridley included a chart from Our World In Data, showing the cumulative area burned by wildfires by week for Europe. The chart puts 2026 as having the smallest area for this time of year in a dataset going back to 2012.
Ridley’s post was widely shared by prominent rightwing figures – including Richard Tice, deputy leader of the hard-right, climate-sceptic Reform UK party, former Conservative cabinet minister Jacob Rees-Mogg and multiple commentators.
Separately, Wielicki also shared a chart on Twitter to imply that wildfires in Europe are declining. Wielicki has previously claimed that the “science is not settled on climate change”.
The charts posted by Ridley and Wielicki both use data from the Global Wildfire Information System (GWIS). The GWIS category for “Europe” encompasses all the countries on the continent and includes the whole of Russia.
As a result, Russia accounts for about 74% of the area included in the GWIS definition of “Europe”.
Wildfires in Russia typically account for 80-90% of the burned area in the GWIS Europe dataset. In 2026, fires in Russia are substantially below average. Therefore, including Russia in this comparison creates the false impression that wildfire activity across Europe is unusually low.
Dr Calum Cunningham, a research fellow at the University of Tasmania’s Fire Centre, says that such claims are “highly misleading”, noting that “they rely on aggregating fire activity across an enormous and climatically diverse region”. He tells Carbon Brief:
“A relatively quiet season in Russia can easily mask an exceptionally active season in France or Spain. If the analysis is focused on the regions actually experiencing the current fires, the picture is very different.
“The reality is that western Europe has experienced an extraordinary sequence of climate conditions this year.”
In contrast, the EFFIS provides a subset of wildfire data specifically for the area covered by the 27 nations of the EU, which, therefore, excludes Russia.
Another difference between the two datasets is that GWIS monitors all fires – including those on agricultural land that are intentionally set alight. The burned area as measured by GWIS contains significant cropland area.
By contrast, EFFIS uses land-cover data and other information to filter specifically for forest fires.
Looking at the EU-only data from EFFIS reveals that Europe is far from having its “quietest” year. The bloc’s burned area, as of 29 July, is almost 435,000 hectares (ha) – second only to 2022 for this time of year.
Notably, Wielicki has actually continued to post charts based on GWIS data, even after acknowledging that “includ[ing] all of Russia, including vast areas of Siberia…isn’t a good proxy for Europe”.
French fires
Even looking at EU-wide data misses the scale of this year’s wildfires for some individual countries.
The chart below shows the surge in burned area in France since mid-July.
For much of the first half of the year, the country was having a wildfire season that was only slightly above average in terms of total burned area. However, a notable uptick began in the first week of July.
The third week of the month saw France break its previous cumulative annual record by more than 19,000ha. That gap has widened as the fires continue to burn; as of 29 July, the cumulative burned area in France during 2026 was nearly 24,700ha above the previous record.
The fires in France follow a record-breaking June heatwave that “dried out vegetation across the region, allowing fires to spread quickly”, wrote the New York Times.
On 27 July, French president Emmanuel Macron called a “crisis cabinet meeting” in order to address the fires “ravaging several areas of south-west France”, said France 24.
More than 220,000 people have been evacuated due to the Gironde fire, west of Bordeaux, in “what may be France’s largest peacetime evacuation”, reported the Associated Press.
In the Conversation, Cunningham and two other University of Tasmania researchers write that evacuation orders “protec[t] human lives, but makes it more likely houses and other structures will burn if there’s no one to defend them”. They add:
“There is little doubt climate change has made France and Spain’s wildfires worse. They represent yet another reason to redouble our efforts to tackle climate change and stabilise our climate.”
Central Spain scorched
While Spain’s fire season has not broken records in the same way that France’s has, it is on track to be among the worst since EFFIS began reporting data in 2006.
The chart below shows the rapid increase in burned area in Spain since 8 July. The latest data from EFFIS reveal that, as of 29 July, Spain has almost matched its previous record at this point in the year. It is also nearly five times the average area burned for this time of year.
In Spain, the wildfires have been concentrated in the central part of the country, near Madrid.
BBC News reported that the fires outside the capital have burned “an area more than twice as large as the city itself”.
Nearly 90,000 people were forced from their homes in central Spain by the fires, said the Associated Press.
Pedro Sánchez, Spain’s prime minister, called the fires a “painful expression” of climate change.
Meanwhile, the UK, French and Spanish governments have issued joint statements this week in response to the fires. The UK/Spain statement begins:
“This summer’s wildfires demonstrated that climate change was now a national security emergency facing Europe and threatening our way of life.”
Related
The post Factcheck: No, Europe is not having its ‘quietest’ year for wildfires appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Factcheck: No, Europe is not having its ‘quietest’ year for wildfires
The general public often underestimate support for climate action, while overestimating the real-world actions taken by other people to address the problem, according to new research.
The study, published in Nature Climate Change, explores the differences between people’s support for climate change, their behaviour and their assumptions about other people’s behaviour.
It is based on multiple surveys of more than 5,000 people across Germany and the US.
The study expands on previous research on how the general public systematically underestimate the climate commitment of their peers.
The difference between actual and perceived support for climate action among the public is sometimes known as a “perception gap”.
The surveys tested how people’s perceptions of climate attitudes and behaviours relate to their own willingness to contribute and undertake “climate-friendly” actions.
One of the authors tells Carbon Brief that this perception gap is not due to “ignorance or bias”, but because “people are just not good at making good estimations”.
The research also reveals that people’s opinions and behaviours are more “nuanced than previously assumed” and suggests that simply “correcting misperceptions” does not automatically lead to greater climate action.
Measuring climate actions
The study notes that correcting the perception gap is often seen as a “cost-effective” way to promote public engagement and drive action to reduce the intensification and impacts of climate change.
Most studies that explore the perception gap have primarily focused on surveys that have asked people to report their willingness to support climate change.
In other words, researchers have relied upon people saying they would support efforts to tackle climate change, rather than measuring people’s real-world actions, such as financial donations, attending protests or changing their behaviour.
To fill this gap, the researchers behind the new study surveyed a total of more than 5,000 people in Germany and the US over 2024-25. Surveys were split across five different experiments, each focused on public perceptions of climate attitudes and how they relate to individuals’ actual behaviour:
| Experiment | What they did |
| Survey one | Participants were asked if they were willing to donate 1% of their household income to WWF – and then were given the chance to do so. Follow-up questions asked participants to predict how many of their peers said “yes” and how many actually donated to the charity. |
| Survey two | Participants read a constitutional complaint against the German government, led by Greenpeace, which demands for stricter climate policies. They were asked if they were willing to participate as a claimant and/or donate to the cause – and then were given the chance to do so. Follow-up questions asked participants to predict how many of their peers said “yes” and how many went on to support the complaint. |
| Survey three | Participants were requested to complete an online “work for environmental protection task” where the more “pages” they completed resulted in more donations to WWF. They then predicted how many pages their peers completed. Participants also rated their individual behaviours and support for eight climate policies and then estimated the same for other people. |
| Surveys four and five | Participants were split into three groups that were either informed that 4% of participants had donated 1% of their household income to WWF, that “68% were willing to contribute” or given no information. They then had to state whether they were willing to support WWF and then were given the opportunity to do so. |
The authors note that Germany and the US are two of the “top 10 CO2 emitters” and are places where climate action is “especially necessary”. However, they add that the two countries are not reflective of “diverse cultural contexts” and further research is needed across the world.
The perception gap
The researchers find that most of their participants supported climate action, but much fewer actually performed verifiable behaviours.
For example, survey one finds that 37% of participants said they were willing to donate to WWF, yet just 4% did when given the opportunity.
Participants generally overestimated the climate actions of their peers, predicting that 23% of other people donated. Willingness, on the other hand, was slightly underestimated with respondents averaging around 34%.
The results from survey three suggest that this perception gap is likely due to general cognitive processes within the human brain that make accurate estimations about large groups difficult, say the authors.
The chart below shows the actual percentage of people who supported different environmental policies and performed climate-friendly behaviours (blue dots) compared to average predictions from the surveys (red dots).
They reveal a “consistent pattern” where “small proportions were overestimated and large ones were underestimated”, the authors say, driving predictions towards the middle. This phenomenon is known as “regression to the mean”.
In other words, where public support for a policy was high, participants in the survey estimated it was lower than it was. When the support was lower, estimates would be higher.
The study finds that individual and environmental factors played a role in shaping people’s perceptions of their peers’ climate actions, which were distinct from general misestimations.
For example, people who were already involved in climate action, had more frequent climate discussions and consumed more climate-focused news and media predicted a higher proportion of climate support “across the board”.
The results from the fourth and fifth surveys show that knowing the context of other people’s beliefs and behaviour in surveys can impact the attitudes of participants.
Participants that were told that 68% of people were willing to donate 1% of their household income to the WWF were more willing to donate.
In contrast, participants that were told that 4% of people actually donated did not report more willingness to “discuss climate change, sign petitions or donate” than the control group.
However, there was no obvious impact on actual donations for any of the three groups, the study notes.
Lead study author Dr Kevin Tiede, scientific managing director of the Institute for Planetary Health Behaviour at the University of Erfurt, tells Carbon Brief that the findings suggest that “just telling people how many people support climate action is likely not enough to really change something”.
However, Tiede adds that “direct comparability” between people saying they would donate and actually donating is “limited” and that giving people more time to answer and autonomy over where to donate might result in more people taking action.
‘Pluralistic ignorance’
Tiede explains that the study findings demonstrate the existence of “pluralistic ignorance”, where a person believes their own views differ from the majority.
For climate change, this means that the “vast majority of people around the world support climate action, but people considerably underestimate the extent of this support”, the study says.
However, the surveys reveal that pluralistic ignorance “in the climate domain” is more nuanced than previously thought, say the authors.
Prof Madalina Vascleanu, an assistant professor at Stanford University’s Doerr School of Sustainability, who was not involved in the study, tells Carbon Brief that encouraging climate action is complex.
It may take multiple and repeated “attempts” at effective communication, or for people to directly “experience” the “norm” that climate change is widely supported, she says, rather than simply being told.
“Observable” behaviours, such as “identity signalling” – which could involve anything from protesting to vegetarianism – might have more of an impact on encouraging climate action among peers than “private behaviours like donations”, she adds.
The study is a “great addition to the literature”, Vascleanu says, because “correcting” the perception gap did not have an effect on climate-friendly behaviour, as “scholars had previously assumed”. She adds that it has “sparked several new hypotheses” that her “lab is now working on”.
Prof Mauro Bertolotti, associate professor of social psychology at the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, explains that the “attitude-behaviour gap” revealed by the research is a “rather common finding”.
However, he is “sceptical” of the “simplified and abstract” measures, warning that experiment environments often come with “assumptions and expectations” that are different from real life.
As a result, they might not “replicate” the process people go through when choosing to “make a donation to an environmental cause”, he says.
‘Targeted’ communication strategies
The researchers argue that it is more effective to focus on “targeted” communication strategies – encouraging climate-friendly behaviours that aim to reach the majority who already support climate action, rather than trying to convert climate sceptics.
They call for attention to be paid to the attitude-behaviour gap between people saying they support efforts to tackle climate change and following up with real-world climate actions.
The study suggests strategies for decision-makers to reduce the attitude-behaviour gap, such as “facilitating climate-friendly behaviour” with “convenience and subsidies”. They also recommend ensuring environmental policy prioritises fairness to gain visible and widespread public support.
They add that the public would benefit from understanding the “effectiveness and co-benefits” of climate action.
Tiede, K.E. et al. (2026) People systematically under- and overestimate public engagement in climate action, Nature Climate Change, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-026-02668-z
Related
Scientists are ‘most trusted’ source of climate information in global-south survey
Survey: ‘Very few’ Africans place responsibility for climate action on ‘rich nations’
Guest post: How public attitudes towards ‘CO2 removal’ differ in the UK and US
Guest post: How ‘discourses of delay’ are used to slow climate action
The post Correcting climate ‘misperceptions’ may not boost climate action appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Correcting climate ‘misperceptions’ may not boost climate action
‘Ride the wave of momentum’: Australia announces once-in-a-decade Marine Parks Network review
Factcheck: No, Europe is not having its ‘quietest’ year for wildfires
Correcting climate ‘misperceptions’ may not boost climate action
-
Greenhouse Gases12 months ago
Guest post: Why China is still building new coal – and when it might stop
-
Climate Change12 months ago
Guest post: Why China is still building new coal – and when it might stop
-
Greenhouse Gases2 years ago嘉宾来稿：满足中国增长的用电需求 光伏加储能“比新建煤电更实惠”
-
Climate Change2 years ago嘉宾来稿：满足中国增长的用电需求 光伏加储能“比新建煤电更实惠”
-
Climate Change2 years ago
Bill Discounting Climate Change in Florida’s Energy Policy Awaits DeSantis’ Approval
-
Renewable Energy9 months agoSending Progressive Philanthropist George Soros to Prison?
-
Carbon Footprint2 years agoUS SEC’s Climate Disclosure Rules Spur Renewed Interest in Carbon Credits
-
Greenhouse Gases1 year ago
嘉宾来稿：探究火山喷发如何影响气候预测