Are Americans Concerned About Climate Change? New Polling Finds Public Worry Is at a Near Record High

(SeaPRwire) –   New polling indicates that concern over climate change in the United States is close to an all-time high. Gallup, the American polling firm, released its annual environmental survey on April 14. Conducted last month, the poll offers fresh insights into how Americans view climate change. 

Right now, 44% of U.S. adults are very worried about global warming or climate change—one of the highest figures recorded since 1989, alongside 46% in 2020 and 45% in 2017. A record-low 35% of U.S. adults express positive feelings about the quality of the environment, a decline driven by Independents whose positive view has dropped 10 points from last year (from 44% to 34%). By comparison, 63% of Republicans rate the nation’s environmental quality as high, while only 16% of Democrats do—this is the lowest on record for Democrats, down one point. Gallup Senior Editor Megan Brenan says, “The drop in confidence is a pretty big shift, especially since there wasn’t an administration change this year.” 

Brenan notes that Independent voters’ declining satisfaction is visible across multiple issues. “Over the past year or two, we’ve seen similar drops among Independents on many different topics we cover,” she explains. “I think this reflects the President’s popularity and how people perceive his job performance.”

Do Americans want the government to do more to address climate change? 

Since taking office in January 2025, the Trump Administration has embraced climate denial and pursued several anti-climate actions. This past February, the EPA repealed the endangerment finding—a landmark assessment that proved six greenhouse gases threaten human health, forming the legal basis for climate policies and regulations. That same month, the EPA also announced it would roll back Biden-era pollution standards (set to be implemented by 2027), allowing coal-burning plants to release more heavy metals like mercury and lead. 

However, the polling shows a growing number of people believe the U.S. government could do more on environmental action. Sixty-three percent of U.S. adults say the government is doing too little—this is the highest level since Gallup’s first reading in 1992, and a six-point increase from last year.

Is climate change affecting Americans’ lives?

While a near-record 66% of Americans say the environment is worsening, and 61% of U.S. adults believe global warming’s effects have already begun, less than half (45% of respondents) think climate change will threaten them or their way of life during their lifetime. 

But despite this finding, the impacts of global warming are already being felt across the country.

The U.S. just had its warmest March on record, with the average temperature in the contiguous United States 9.4°F above the 20th-century average. Many natural disasters over the past year have been amplified by our warming planet. Climate change increased the likelihood of the wildfires that tore through Los Angeles last January, while so-called “100-year floods” (like the one that killed over 100 people in Texas’s Hill Country last July) are becoming more common as the world warms. 

Which environmental issue concerns most Americans?

The top environmental concerns for respondents were drinking water pollution (56% of those surveyed) and maintaining the nation’s fresh water supply (53%). Among Republicans, 38% worry “a great deal” about drinking water pollution, and 31% care about preserving the fresh water supply—compared to only 6% of Republicans who feel the same about climate change. This comes as the Colorado River (which supplies water to Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming) faces historic water scarcity and a battle over water rights. Record dry conditions are also raising drought fears in parts of North Carolina, Virginia, and Florida.  

Polling shows that over time, political parties have diverged sharply on the cause of global warming. In 2001, 72% of Democrats, 59% of Independents, and 52% of Republicans attributed global warming to human-caused pollution. Now, those figures are 90% for Democrats, 65% for Independents, and just 28% for Republicans.

This highlights how climate change has long been politicized for many Americans, viewed as a partisan issue rather than one grounded in science. “Since we started asking this question in 2001, we’ve seen similar patterns among partisans,” Brenan says. “It’s definitely very, very polarized.”