US public still favours action on climate change despite Trump’s fossil fuel drive

Two-thirds of Americans say they are worried about climate but level of media coverage does not reflect this

US political and media discourse has drifted away from the climate crisis amid a frontal assault by Donald Trump upon policies to limit global heating and the president’s pugnacious demands to “drill, baby, drill” for more oil and gas.

Yet while elite attention on climate has waned , even among some previously vocal Democrats who have wound back on criticism of the fossil fuels that are overheating our planet, the American public remains concerned about the climate crisis and continues to favour action to deal with it, according to experts and polling.

“The 2024 election was not a referendum on climate change – Americans believe in climate change, worry about climate change and support action on climate change,” said Anthony Leiserowitz, director of the climate communication program at Yale University. “That didn’t change before, during or after the election.”

About two-thirds of Americans say they are worried about the climate crisis, Yale’s longstanding climate polling has found , with this proportion staying consistent even as other topics such as the Iran war and inflation have dominated news cycles.

However, people in the US are hearing and reading less about climate change as the media shrinks its coverage of the issue, despite mounting heatwaves, droughts and other impacts that have roiled parts of the country. Outlets including the Washington Post, NPR and CBS have also cut climate journalist positions.

“Voting priorities haven’t changed much in terms of climate but other issues have leapfrogged over it, such as the Iran war, and the lack of coverage in the media means that people aren’t hearing or talking about it as much,” said Leiserowitz.

“There is this spiral of climate silence. I’ve even heard some leaders of climate groups say, ‘don’t mention climate change.’ I don’t know why they’d make that decision, there’s absolutely no evidence that people care about this less than they did.”