Nine out of 10, more or less

Could this become the statistic on climate change that becomes accepted fact?

Last week you may have noticed – or maybe not, depending on your media habits – climate news stories featuring the statistic 89%.

If you did, it’s likely the result of a campaign launched by a group of journalists and media called the 89% Project. Participants include an impressive list of titles: Agence France Presse, The Guardian (UK), The National Observer (Canada), Deutsche Welle (Germany), Corriere della Sera (Italy), The Asahi Shimbun (Japan), and The Nation, Rolling Stone, Scientific American, and TIME (all USA).

Starting with its launch last week, the project seeks to publicise the simple fact that most (89% to be precise) of the world’s population want their governments to take more action against global warming. That number comes from a peer-reviewed study published in Nature, surveying more than 129,000 people in 125 countries. It’s among several other very large-scale research projects the project draws on, each yielding similar results.

The scale of the research is, in itself, striking. The sample sizes are of an order of magnitude larger than most research in this field. The countries covered account for 96% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, GDP and (we can confidently assume) almost all its carbon consumption.

The 89% statistic, in particular, has a force that gives it the potential to become, through repetition, accepted fact. Not only among the climate-converted, but also to break through to climate-sceptic circles, too. Particularly if that 89% further simplified by rounding up to nine out of 10.

That headline number needs a whole lot more coverage to get there, though. It will be interesting to see whether and how the year-long campaign will gather momentum from its launch last week towards its second “moment” planned for the run-up to October’s COP30 UN Climate Summit meeting in Brazil.

One is that almost seven out of 10 people of the survey’s respondents say they would be prepared to pay 1% of their household income every month to fight global warming. This is tantalizing for supporters of carbon pricing, like me, although it needs to be set against other compelling evidence to the contrary, such as the political failure of Canada’s consumer carbon tax. I’ll write in more detail about that another time.

The other finding is the difference between people’s personal beliefs and their perceptions of their neighbours’ support: while the average of those willing to contribute 1% of their income was 69%, the percentage of their fellow citizens they thought would be willing to do the same was only 43%. The gap between perception and reality was as high as 40 percentage points in some countries (country-by-country details are here).

As the research concludes:

“The prevailing pessimism regarding others’ support for climate action can deter individuals from engaging in climate action, thereby confirming the negative beliefs held by others. Therefore, our results suggest a potentially powerful intervention, that is, a concerted political and communicative effort to correct these misperceptions.”

That insight provides the driving rationale for the 89% Project. But it also suggests to me that climate campaigners must stay resolutely mainstream in their appeals. They should focus on mutual interests, because the messaging on climate change that’s proved most effective features real people and talks about families. Climate campaigners should also avoid shrill extremism. Yes, we live in a polarised world, but the extremes are self-defeating. Most of the support already exists, so don’t alienate it. Instead, focus on the centre.

At a time when the world’s major companies are either keeping their heads down or are in full scale retreat from their sustainability commitments and responsibilities, it's heartening for at least some media organisations to be stepping up.

I have to hope that more will do so. But I won’t be surprised if it’s less than enough to break through to climate sceptics. In any case, that 89% statistic is my new best friend and I’m going to use it whenever I can. You should too.