There is a troubling paradox at the heart of climate politics. Across the world, overwhelming majorities want governments to act on global warming. Yet in many of the largest economies, voters are supporting political parties that deny, minimise or obstruct the action required to avert escalating planetary danger.
This paradox exists because the climate emergency is unfolding within an economic order that many experience as fundamentally unjust. This year, as one person’s wealth passed one trillion dollars, four in ten respondents across 17 G20 countries said they were worried that their household would not be able to afford basic needs in the coming year. In lower income countries conditions are even worse
That contrast tells us much about the climate paradox. The neoliberal “trickle down” promised over the past four decades never appeared. The 2008 financial crisis and subsequent global shocks blatantly showed that while profits are definitely privatised, the risks are socialised—and the poor typically pay the most proportionately. This is a recipe to sow distrust in institutions and governments. Yet people are being asked by their governments to trust assurances that another far-reaching transformation will be fairer and more just than the last one.
Earth4All’s latest survey, carried out by Ipsos among 13,500 people in 17 countries (G20 countries plus Sweden and minus China, Russia and Saudi Arabia), clearly shows the wider crisis of legitimacy. Seventy per cent say there is too much economic inequality in their country; 65% say the economic system is “rigged to benefit the rich and powerful”; and 69% want major changes to the economic system, with only 8% disagreeing with that. Yet fewer than one-third of people trust their governments to make decisions that will benefit the majority of people two or three decades from now.
These are entirely rational positions unfortunately validated by lived experience. In a world where wealth has become spectacularly concentrated and large corporations and the very wealthy can shape regulation, taxation and public spending to their advantage, the sense that the rules are written for the powerful is well founded. The same political and economic arrangements that generate extreme inequality also erode the public capacity needed to provide affordable energy, decent jobs, good and affordable public services and resilience against climate shocks.
The result is that the climate mandate remains real but conditional. Across the 17 countries surveyed, 54% support strong government action to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions even if it leads to higher prices. Just over half of respondents supported this even in the US, where anti-climate alleviation policies have taken over the government. But support for such policies falls among lower-income groups and right-leaning respondents in all survey countries. The message is clear: climate policy cannot work and will be resisted socially and politically if it is unfair and the highest-emitting affluent continue business as usual.
This is inseparable from a wider crisis of social cohesion. Two in three respondents (67%) say their country is more divided than it was ten years ago. Seventy-one percent see serious tension between supporters of different political parties; 63% see it between people on high and low incomes; 62% between immigrants and the native-born; and 53% between people concerned about climate change and those who are sceptical.
Societies marked by such fractures struggle to make collective decisions, share costs and pursue big bold ideas that may take years or decades to materialise. This matters for every defining challenge of this century: cutting emissions, adapting to climate impacts, reversing ecological breakdown, reducing inequality, ensuring good quality employment and governing the disruptive effects of artificial intelligence. Each requires public institutions that can invest over the long term, act fairly and command sufficient trust to sustain difficult change.
That trust is now the weakest link. Asked whether their government can be trusted to make decisions that will benefit the majority of people 20 or 30 years from now, fewer than one in three respondents (31%) said yes.
Democracy retains considerable support: 68% say that a democratic political system, in which leaders are chosen through free and fair elections, is the best way to govern their country. Yet its legitimacy is fragile. Four in ten respondents (40%) also say their country would be better off with a strong leader unconstrained by parliament and elections. In several upper-middle-income countries, that figure rises above half.
Ultimately, democracy’s survival depends on its capacity to deliver to all. It is unconscionable that even as material wealth has expanded overall, even in the richest nations so many people are economically insecure. This is not progress; it is economic and political failure. Democracies must create greater economic security, social dignity and a vision for the future for the least well off in society: affordable clean energy, decent work, universal public services and resilience against shocks. It must also ensure that those who have contributed most to emissions bear the largest share of the costs of transformation.
The climate mandate will endure only when democracies make efforts to be fairer: when clean energy lowers household bills, public investment creates secure work, essential services are protected, and the wealthiest and highest emitters pay their fair share. Governments don’t need to manufacture consent for climate action; they need to rewrite the social contract that can sustain it.
