For many forms of political engagement – such as voting in elections – older adults are more likely to participate than younger adults. However, when it comes to climate activism, Gen Zers and Millennials are more likely than Gen X and Baby Boomer and older adults to have taken action to address climate change through participation in a range of activities. Younger adults are also more likely than older adults to talk about the need for action on climate change, and to have been encouraged to get more involved. Among social media users, they’re also more likely to engage with climate social media content and to have strong emotional reactions – such as anxiety about the future or anger about lack of action – to the content they see.
As with most attitudes and behaviors around climate change, partisan differences are also pronounced, with Democrats much more likely than Republicans to have taken steps themselves to help address climate change and engage with climate change content in personal conversations and online.
Overall, 16% of U.S. adults say they have donated money to an organization that is focused on addressing climate change in the past year. One-in-ten Americans have contacted an elected official to urge them to act on climate change, and the same share has volunteered for an activity that was focused on addressing climate change. Somewhat fewer – just 6% of adults – say they have attended a protest or rally to show support for addressing climate change in the past year.
Put together, 24% of Americans say they have done at least one of these four activities to address climate change in the past 12 months.
A third of Gen Z adults (32%) and 28% of Millennials have participated in at least one of these activities aimed at addressing climate change in the last year. This compares with smaller shares of Gen X (23%) and Baby Boomer and older adults (21%).
Democrats are roughly three times as likely as Republicans to have taken at least one of these four actions to address climate change. Among Republicans, Gen Z adults (21%) are much more likely than Baby Boomer and older adults (7%) to have participated in at least one activity to help address climate change in the last year.
Addressing climate change among Democrats’ top personal concerns
Asked about the issues and activities that are important to them, 31% of Americans call addressing global climate change a top concern to them personally, while another 39% say this is one of several important concerns. Three-in-ten say addressing climate change is not an important concern to them personally.
On a list with nine other issues, climate change ranks toward the middle, with larger shares naming improving K-12 education (38%) and supporting U.S. military veterans (35%) as top personal concerns.
About half of Democrats (49%) say addressing climate change is a top concern to them personally, and another 43% call this one of several important concerns. For Democrats, climate change ranks alongside addressing racial justice (51% top concern) as among the issues they express the most personal concern about.
By contrast, just 10% of Republicans say addressing climate change is a top personal concern (32% say it is one of several important concerns). A majority of Republicans (58%) say climate change is not an important concern to them – among the largest shares of Republicans who say this about any of the 10 items included in the survey.
Across generations, 37% of Gen Zers and 33% of Millennials say addressing global climate change is a top concern to them personally, and large majorities of both groups say it is at least one of several important concerns to them (76% and 75%, respectively). Gen X and Baby Boomer and older adults are less likely to call addressing climate change a top personal concern (27% and 29%, respectively), and smaller majorities say it is at least one of several important concerns to them.
Among Republicans, 55% of Gen Zers and 52% of Millennials say climate change is at least one of several important concerns to them (though relatively few call it a top personal concern). By contrast, majorities of Gen X (60%) and Baby Boomer and older (65%) Republicans say climate change is not an important concern to them.
Among Democrats, generational patterns are less pronounced, and large majorities of all groups say climate change is at least one of several important concerns to them personally.
Hispanic adults (39%) are more likely than Black (32%) or White (28%) adults to say climate change is a top concern. Younger generations of Hispanic adults (41%) as well as older ones (37%) are about equally likely to say climate change is a top personal concern. Roughly half of Hispanics who identify with or lean to the Democratic Party consider climate change a top personal concern (49%), compared with 21% of Republican and Republican-leaning Hispanics. See the Appendix for more on Hispanics’ views.
A majority of Americans have talked about the need for action on climate change recently; 26% say a friend or family member has encouraged them to get more involved
Overall, 56% of Americans say they are talking about climate change at least sometimes. Over the past few weeks, 18% of U.S. adults say they’ve talked about the need for action on climate change at least a few times each week, and another 38% say they’ve discussed this once or twice in that time. About four-in-ten (43%) say they never discussed this.
When it comes to taking action to address climate change, 26% of U.S. adults say a friend or family member has encouraged them to get more involved in efforts to reduce the effects of climate change. Relatively fewer report that a friend or family member has criticized them for not doing enough to help with climate change efforts (13%).
Asked to think about talking with someone they disagree with over the need for action on climate change, 40% say they generally find this to be a difficult conversation, while a larger share (57%) say it is generally not a difficult conversation for them. Those who describe climate change as a top personal concern are much more likely to say talking with those they disagree with on the issue is a difficult conversation than those who place lower personal importance on climate change (52% to 34%).
Younger Americans and Democrats are more likely to have talked about the need for action on climate change recently. For instance, 24% of Gen Z adults say they have talked about the need for action on climate change at least a few times each week recently, compared with 14% of Baby Boomer and older adults.
About a quarter of Democrats (26%) have discussed this at least a few times each week, and another 45% have done so once or twice over the past few weeks. In comparison, a majority of Republicans (60%) say they never talked about the need for action on climate change in the past few weeks.
Overall, Gen Z (36%) and Millennial (34%) adults are more likely to say a friend or family member has encouraged them to get more involved in efforts to reduce the effects of climate change; 25% of Gen X and 18% of Baby Boomer and older adults say this has happened to them.
Younger adults also are more likely to say a friend or family member has criticized them for not doing enough on climate, though larger shares across generations report being encouraged to get involved than being criticized for not doing more.
People who have talked about the need for climate action in the past few weeks are much more likely to say that they have received such encouragements or admonishments.
Among social media users, younger generations stand out for engagement with content about the need to address global climate change
Gen Z adults, born after 1996, have lived their whole lives in an internet and social media era. Younger adults have been among the first to adopt social media use and remain much more likely than older adults to say they are online “almost constantly.”
Gen Z adults report seeing climate-related content on social media platforms to a greater extent than older generations. Gen Z, as well as Millennials, are more likely than older adults to engage with climate posts, saying they have interacted with or shared a post about the need for action on climate change in the past few weeks or that they follow an account focused on this cause. Those social media users who engage with climate content – a group that skews younger than the general population – are particularly likely to have emotional reactions to what they see, ranging from feeling motivated and confident about addressing climate change to feeling anxious for the future and angry that more isn’t being done now.
Gen Z adults on social media are most likely to see climate-related content in their feeds
Climate change is just one of many topics vying for attention in social media users’ feeds.
The Center survey asked social media users whether they had seen content focused on each of seven possible topics in the past few weeks across any platform.
Of the seven topics, climate change content was the least frequently encountered: 46% of social media users had seen climate-related content in the past few weeks.
The most common, seen by 91% of social media users, was content encouraging people to get a coronavirus vaccine.
Gen Z social media users stand out from Millennials and older generations for the relatively high share – 56% – who say they have seen content geared toward addressing global climate change in the past few weeks. Fewer than half of Millennial (46%), Gen X (42%) or Baby Boomer and older social media users (44%) say the same.
Among social media users, Democrats and independents who lean to the Democratic Party are more likely than Republicans and Republican leaners to report seeing content about addressing climate change (53% vs. 38%). But strikingly, similar shares of Democratic and Republican Gen Z social media users say they have seen climate-related content over the past few weeks (58% and 55%).
Climate-related posts evoke an array of intense emotional reactions for some social media users, especially among younger generations. Nearly seven-in-ten Gen Z social media users (69%) say that the most recent time they saw content on social media about addressing climate change it made them feel anxious about the future, compared with 41% of Baby Boomer and older social media users.
Nearly half of Gen Z (49%) and 45% of Millennial social media users report having felt angry that not enough is being done to address climate change the last time they saw climate content on social media; Gen X (34%) and Baby Boomer and older (29%) social media users are much less likely to say they felt this way. In addition, younger more so than older social media users say they felt motivated to learn more about climate change the last time they encountered climate content online.
Older social media users are more likely than younger ones to report feeling annoyed that there is so much attention given to the issue when encountering climate content on social media. However, this pattern is driven entirely by views within the GOP: 57% of Baby Boomer and older Republican social media users say they feel annoyed when seeing climate content because of the amount of attention the issue receives, compared with 43% of Gen Z and 37% of Millennial Republicans on social media.
Social media users who are more engaged with climate content report a mix of emotional reactions to what they see, from motivation to anger and anxiety
Aside from seeing content about climate change in their feeds, there are a number of ways social media users can actively engage with climate change content on social media.
The survey finds that 21% of social media users say they follow an account that focuses on the need for action on climate change. The same share of social media users (21%) say they have interacted with a post about the need for climate change (such as liking or commenting) in the past few weeks, and 12% say they have recently posted, or shared a post, about the need for action on climate change.
Taken together, 31% of social media users are climate engaged – that is, having taken at least one of three actions to interact with climate change content on social platforms.
Gen Z (45%) and Millennial (40%) social media users are much more likely to engage with content about the need for action on climate change than Gen X (27%) and Baby Boomer and older (21%) social media users.
This generational pattern occurs among both Democrats and Republicans. Democratic Gen Zers (54%) and Millennials (53%) on social media are more likely to engage with content about the need for action on climate change than Baby Boomer and older Democrats (37%). Among Republican social media users, 32% of Gen Z, 22% of Millennial, 17% of Gen X and 7% of Baby Boomer and older adults engage with climate content.
Climate-engaged social media users stand out from others on social platforms across a range of climate attitudes, including the priority they give to addressing the issue, the levels of support they offer for policies to deal with climate impacts and the emotional reactions they have when encountering climate content online.
For example, 73% of climate-engaged social media users favor the idea of phasing out production of new gasoline vehicles by 2035, and 54% favor phasing out the use of all fossil fuels, relying instead solely on renewable energy sources. Much smaller shares of those who do not engage with climate content on social media express these views (39% and 27%, respectively).
In another sign of support for action among the climate-engaged on social media, a majority (58%) say they think Biden’s policies will not go far enough to address climate change.
Notably, those engaged with climate content also report a range of intense emotions about what they see. Roughly three-quarters of this group (77%) report that their most recent encounter with climate-related content made them feel anxious about the future. And two-thirds of this group (67%) say it made them feel angry about insufficient action to address climate change.
At the same time, 75% of these climate-engaged social media users also say that climate-related content made them feel motivated to learn more about climate change. Six-in-ten say it made them feel confident in our ability to do something to reduce the effects of climate change.
Seeing others urge action on climate change is motivating to roughly four-in-ten Americans
About four-in-ten Americans say seeing younger adults (42%) or people like them (39%) urging action on climate change makes them feel more interested in addressing the issue.
Majorities of Democrats say they feel more interested in addressing climate change when they see younger adults (64%) or people like themselves (59%) urging action; fewer Republicans (16% and 17%, respectively) say this makes them more motivated.
