In Short : Indians are increasingly concerned about global warming and strongly support the 2070 Net Zero goal. Public sentiment reflects a commitment to climate action, backing initiatives to reduce carbon emissions and promote sustainable practices to achieve long-term environmental goals.
In Detail : A national survey conducted by CVoter for the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication reveals that Indians increasingly worry about global warming and overwhelmingly support India’s 2070 Net Zero goal.
An exclusive survey conducted by CVoter for Yale University’s Program on Climate Change Communication finds that a majority of Indians say that global warming is real and caused mostly by human activities, is harmful to themselves and other people in India, and strongly support the clean energy transition. Indeed, 78 per cent of Indians believe global warming is happening and 85 per cent say they have personally experienced its effects.
Perhaps surprisingly, a large majority of Indians (84 per cent) favour banning the construction of new coal power plants, closing existing ones, and replacing them with solar and wind energy. Not only do most Indians support various environmental protection policies, but they are also willing to adopt environmentally-friendly behaviours. About 3 in 4 Indians are willing to pay up to 10 per cent or more for energy-efficient appliances and electric vehicles to reduce costs and global warming.
These findings suggest that some politicians’ and experts’ fears about a public backlash against ambitious action on global warming may be unwarranted. Indeed, the percentage of people in India who say the government of India should be doing “much more” to address global warming is 15 percentage points higher than in our previous survey in 2021-22.
Global warming is real and increasingly personal
CVoter conducted this milestone survey in collaboration with a team of global experts led by Yale University. It was conducted between September and November 2023, interviewing 2,178 adult Indians above the age of 18 contacted on their mobile phones using random sampling techniques. A report describing the results of the survey was recently released by Yale University.
The results should not come as a surprise. The 2024 heatwaves amidst the elections were made 45 times more likely and 0.85ºC hotter, according to scientists at World Weather Attribution. In 2023, large parts of India suffered an unprecedented heatwave that resulted in at least 264 deaths. Scientists say climate change made this devastating heat wave 30 times more likely. Heatwaves like these over the Indian subcontinent will become even more common and hotter in the future due to global warming. Excessive heat in the oceans and the atmosphere has been supercharging cyclones, such as Cyclone Michaung, which recently flooded Chennai. According to the World Meteorological Organisation, Asia is the world’s most disaster-hit region regarding weather, climate, and water-related hazards in 2023.
Large majorities of people in India are worried about various hazards harming their local areas, including severe heat waves (85 per cent), droughts and water shortages (85 per cent), severe air pollution (85 per cent), famines and food shortages (83 per cent), severe cyclones (76 per cent), and severe floods (71 per cent).
Three in four Indians (75 per cent) say it would take their household several months or more to recover from a severe flood and a higher proportion (85 per cent) say it would take them months or more to recover from a severe drought. The percentage of people who say it would take their household several months or more to recover from a severe flood is 12 percentage points higher than in the 2022 survey.
About one in three people in India (34 per cent) say they have either already moved (14 per cent) or considered moving (20 per cent) because of weather-related disasters.
Importantly, just over half (54 per cent) of respondents say they know little or nothing about global warming. Only 33 per cent of respondents say they hear about global warming on media platforms even once a week. But when a simple definition was provided describing climate change and how it affects weather patterns, 78 per cent of respondents immediately said that climate change is happening.
In the latest CVoter/Yale survey, 52 per cent of the respondents say human activities are primarily responsible for global warming, while 38 per cent say it is a product mainly of natural causes. Most importantly, global warming is a reality that most Indians now face in their communities. More than four in five Indians say they have personally experienced global warming and its consequences. This is 11 percentage points higher than the previous survey conducted in 2022 and 43 percentage points higher than our first survey in 2011.
Indians are increasingly worried about global warming
The CVoter/Yale survey also finds that a large majority of Indians are convinced global warming poses significant risks. A large majority of Indians (91 per cent) say they are worried about global warming. The percentage of Indians who say they are “very worried” is 9 percentage points higher than in 2022 and 39 per cent higher than in the 2011 survey.
Three out of every four Indians say that global warming not only harms the lives and livelihoods of their families and communities but also imperils future generations. In fact, more than 50 per cent of Indians are convinced global warming is already harming people in India.
India experienced an extreme weather disaster almost every day in the first nine months of 2023, which resulted in about 3,000 deaths, affected 1.84 million hectares of crop area, destroyed over 80,563 houses and killed close to 92,519 livestock, according to a report by the Centre for Science and Environment.
About 7 in 10 Indians think global warming will cause more severe heatwaves, severe cyclones, extinction of plant and animal species, droughts and water shortages, famines and food shortages, and severe floods if nothing is done to address it. Most Indians think global warming affects weather in their local area (71 per cent) and monsoons (76 per cent).
Indians support the 2070 Net Zero goal
India already faces a host of developmental challenges, and some may believe that investing resources to address global warming may result in a public backlash. India needs to invest 1.5 times or more than advanced economies as a share of GDP today to support economic development and build low-carbon infrastructure. Without international support, financing this additional investment would likely result in a 2 per cent decline in total household consumption. Indeed, the transition to clean energy may result in the loss of about 5 million well-paying jobs, according to the Asia Society, often in regions that are hungry for development.
But Indians also express very strong support for concrete steps to combat global warming and accelerate the clean energy transition. More than 90 per cent of Indians support a national program to train people for new jobs in the renewable energy industry, such as wind and solar, which is 11 percentage points higher than the 2022 survey. Similarly, over 90 per cent of Indians support national programs to fund women’s groups and Indigenous communities to protect the environment, and to teach all Indians about global warming.
At the 26th United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP 26) in November 2021, the Indian government announced its intention to reach Net Zero carbon pollution by 2070. A large majority of people in India (86 per cent) say they either “strongly favour” (69 per cent) or “somewhat favour” (17 per cent) this commitment.
More than 8 in 10 Indians think that if India were to transition from using coal to using wind and solar energy for electricity generation, it will reduce air pollution. However, Indians are also cognisant of the challenges of a just transition: more than 50 per cent also fear that the energy transition could increase unemployment (61%), cause electricity outages (58%), and increase electricity prices (57 per cent).
Even though about 75 per cent of electricity in India comes from burning coal, more than 8 in 10 Indians favour banning the construction of new coal power plants, closing existing ones, and replacing them with solar and wind energy. By comparison, only about one in ten oppose it.
Indians are willing to change their behaviour and join a citizens’ campaign for climate action
At COP26, Prime Minister Narendra Modi called for a global mass movement for behaviour change, Lifestyle for the Environment (LiFE), and asked people to take three pledges. A large majority in India are either engaged or willing to make personal lifestyle changes, persuade family and friends, and publicly demonstrate environmentally friendly actions to influence others.
A large majority of people in India (87 per cent) say they are either “already participating in” (6 per cent) or are “definitely” (60 per cent) or “probably” (21 per cent) willing to join a citizens’ campaign to convince elected officials to take action to reduce global warming.
Similarly, about nine in ten Indians (89 per cent) say they are already engaged or willing to engage in collective preparedness actions, such as joining a community emergency response team to prepare for and respond to extreme weather events, such as heatwaves, floods, or cyclones in their local area. Similarly, 87 per cent of Indians are willing to ask local government officials to publicly explain their emergency response plans to help their local community prepare and respond to extreme weather events.
Combating global warming is good economics
A large majority (74 per cent) of Indians say that taking steps to combat global warming will improve India’s economic growth or have no negative effect on the economy and jobs. This includes 51 per cent of the respondents who said the steps will lead to new job creation. Only 21 per cent of Indians think that taking concrete steps to combat global warming will harm growth and cost jobs.
When asked about the best pathway to a healthy, safe, and prosperous future for India, about two in three (67 per cent) Indians say it would be best to leave most of the country’s coal in the ground. By comparison, only one in four people in India (24 per cent) say it would be best to rely on India’s abundant coal for decades to come.
What does this mean? First, Indians recognise that global warming is a reality and a serious threat to themselves and India as a whole. Second, most Indians support strong action to reduce global warming, even if the costs of goods and services go up. Third and most importantly, a majority of Indians prefer a future powered by clean energy.
