The survey of more than 8,000 people in eight countries – the United States, China, India, Britain, Australia, Brazil, South Africa and Germany – found that 84 percent of people now consider climate change a "global catastrophic risk".
That puts worry about climate change only slightly behind fears about large-scale environmental damage and the threat of politically motivated violence escalating into war, according to the Global Challenges Foundation, which commissioned the Global Catastrophic Risks 2017 report.
On climate and environmental issues, "there's certainly a huge gap between what people expect from politicians and what politicians are doing.
It's stunning," said Mats Andersson, vice chairman of the Stockholm-based foundation, in a telephone interview with the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
"Whether it's the spectre of nuclear conflict over North Korea or the planet tipping into catastrophic climate change, the need for effective global cooperation has never been greater," Andersson said.
Nearly two in three Americans also agreed with the statement that "a single individual can negatively impact global cooperation on risks".
(Reporting by Laurie Goering @lauriegoering; editing by Alex Whiting:; Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, climate change, resilience, women's rights, trafficking and property rights. »
![image for North Coyote Buttes, "The Wave," AZ, USA [OC] [800x1200]](f267f887-0a57-5758-951e-fec67fda57ad_thumb.jpg)
