Tuesday, 09 Jun, 2026
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The study, conducted by CVoter in collaboration with Yale shows that most Indians are greatly impacted by global warming and expect the government to do more on India’s clean energy transition.
The ongoing heatwave in the northern parts of the country has prompted the Indian Meteorological department to issue warnings and guidelines to mitigate its risks. However, a vast majority of Indians feel that if global warming is not contained in the next 20 years, there would be many more heat waves to come according to a study by the Yale Programme on Climate Change Communication.
The study was conducted in collaboration with CVoter - India’s leading polling agency in the year 2023, whose results were published on Friday. The survey was conducted over 2,178 Indian adults between 5-September and 1-November 2023.
When asked ‘which of the following events will occur if nothing is done to control global warming’ - nearly 60% respondents said there might be ‘many more’ severe heat waves, followed by extinction of plant and animal species (57%), droughts and water shortages (56%), and severe cyclones (54%).
The study shows that most Indians are greatly impacted by global warming and expect the government to do more on India’s clean energy transition.
According to the survey, more than 78% respondents believed that Global Warming is happening and about 86% respondents said that they have personally experienced a periodical exposure to the same.
This entails that Indians are worried about global warming. When asked ‘How much are they worried about global warming in India’, About 59% of respondents said they were worried a lot, 32% said it was some worrisome, 17% said it was impacting only a little and only 4% said it wasn’t impacting at all.
Climate change involves extreme weather events, which requires mitigation from risks and preparedness from such events. When asked who they are confident on to prepare and respond during extreme weather events - about 61% were very confident on their friends and family, 43% showed high confidence on the members of their community and 36% were confident on State and local government.
When asked how much should the government do to control global warming - nearly 61% respondents said that it needs to do ‘much more’, followed by ‘govt should do more’ (16%), ‘currently doing the same amount’ (10%). Only 5% respondents said the government should do less and 4% said it should do ‘much less’.
