EYES CLOSED

America Is a Global Hotbed of Climate-Change Denial: Poll

Only Saudis and Indonesians more likely to doubt the science of climate change.

The United States has a higher proportion of climate-change deniers or doubters than almost anywhere else on Earth, according to a new poll. A 23-country survey carried out by the YouGov-Cambridge Globalism Project revealed that only the populations of Saudi Arabia and Indonesia have higher levels of climate-change denial than the one recorded in America. A total of 13 percent of Americans polled agreed that climate is changing “but human activity is not responsible at all;” a further 5 percent said that they didn’t believe the climate was changing at all. Americans were also more likely than people in any other Western country surveyed to say they didn’t know whether the climate was changing or if people were responsible—a position held by 13 percent of those polled. However, a huge majority of U.S. citizens do accept the science of climate change, The Guardian reports, with nearly four in 10 saying human activity was at least partially responsible. A further third responded that they believe human activity is the main cause of climate change.