Instinct & Reason’s IRIS Network study of 14,742 adults across 20 countries reveals that people are more worried about the planet in the abstract than about their own backyard and that gap is growing. But separately, everyday climate actions have quietly become part of normal life for most people, even as the emotional urgency driving them fades.
Nine in ten people worldwide consider climate change a serious problem for the planet but fewer than seven in ten say the same about their own local area. That 23-percentage-point gap has nearly doubled in a single year, according to Instinct&Reason’s 2025 IRIS Network Global Public Confidence Study, released today.
The study – the third wave of IRIS’s annual global survey – surveyed 14,742 adults across 20 countries spanning Western and Central-Eastern Europe, the Asia-Pacific region, and the Americas. It is one of the most extensive cross-national studies of climate attitudes conducted to date.
The Proximity Paradox
Our global team of researchers describe the divergence between global and local concern as the ‘Proximity Paradox’: as climate change grows more prominent in international discourse, it is increasingly perceived as a distant, systemic challenge rather than a local reality.
Countries where climate impacts are most viscerally felt include Australia, along with Turkey, Spain, South Korea, and Bulgaria and these countries show the narrowest gap between planetary and local concern. By contrast, high-income Western European societies tend to show the widest gaps, suggesting that strong institutions and living standards are creating psychological distance from the issue.
However, Climate Action Has Become a Habit
Despite a five-percentage-point drop in overall worry since 2024, personal climate action remains high and for many people, appears to have decoupled from emotional urgency. Recycling, reducing energy use, and changing consumption habits dominate; actions requiring financial investment or social advocacy remain less common.
Responsibility Points Upward
Across all 20 countries, the most common expectation is that national governments should take the lead on climate change, cited by 37% of respondents. Citizens and the private sector together account for just one in four responses. Only 10% of respondents are fully disengaged from the issue but 54% act while looking to institutions, not themselves, to drive the solution.
The study identifies five distinct ‘climate psychologies’: Drivers (11%), who act from personal conviction; Followers (54%), who act but delegate responsibility; the Principled (15%), who act from habit and values rather than fear; the Overwhelmed (10%), who feel the problem acutely but are paralysed; and the Disengaged (10%), who are neither worried nor active.
What This Means
The findings point to a global public that is engaged but waiting for leadership — and an opportunity for organisations, brands, and policymakers to move beyond awareness campaigns toward practical, accessible, habit-forming climate action. The gap between global alarm and local reality is not indifference: it is a communications and framing challenge.
About the Study
Instinct & Reason’s 2025 IRIS Global Public Confidence Study was conducted in Q4 2025 with 14,742 adults across 20 countries using a mixed methodology (online, face-to-face, and CATI). Sample sizes ranged from 500 to 1,000 adults per country.
This report covers the Climate Confidence module; separate reports address economic confidence, health attitudes, and artificial intelligence. The study has been conducted annually since 2023.
About IRIS
Instinct & Reason has been part of the IRIS network for over 20 years. IRIS is a global network of independent research and insights companies.
Together, IRIS members design and deliver multi-country studies that provide comparable, high-quality data on public attitudes across diverse markets.
For more information, visit: https://www.irisnetwork.org/network
CONTACT
Dr David Donnelly, Founder, at Instinct & Reason
Phone: 0409 203057
Email: ddonnelly@instinctandreason.com
Alison Dexter, Head of Consulting, Instinct & Reason
Phone: 0499 586 681
Email: adexter@instinctandreason.com