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Spotlight

‘It’s a warning, set to a dance beat’: Jon Batiste on his new song urging climate action 20 years after Katrina

The global music star, whose home town of New Orleans was devastated by the hurricane in 2005, says ‘people power’ can change the world

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About The 89 Percent Project: The People Behind the Numbers

The 89 Percent Project is a year-long global journalistic effort to explore a pivotal but little-known fact about climate change: The overwhelming majority of the world’s people — between 80 and 89%, according to recent science — want governments to take stronger action. But that fact is not reflected in our news coverage, which helps explain why the 89% don’t know that they are the global majority. The 89 Percent Project launched in April 2025 with a CCNow Joint Coverage Week focused on the people who comprise this silent climate majority.

The next phase begins October 26, when newsrooms around the world will put faces behind the numbers: Who are the 89%? How do their numbers vary across countries and gender and generational lines? What kinds of action do they want governments to take?

Ambitious plans are already underway. The Guardian, our lead partner in the 89 Percent Project, already has launched a call-out soliciting stories from their readers. Other newsrooms like Japan’s Asahi Shimbun and Brazil’s Agência Pública are planning to participate, as are Time magazine and Rolling Stone. In addition, CCNow will soon be sending out thousands of postcards to people soliciting their 89 Percent stories.

Finally, along with our colleagues, CCNow will be in Brazil in November for the UN COP30 climate summit, to ensure the 89 Percent message gets heard there.

We welcome whatever approach to the story works for your newsroom. Click here for a FAQ about the next phase of the project, or reach out to us directly at editors@coveringclimatenow.org to talk more.

Stories

The Nation

The Media Is Complicit in the Climate Confusion

The vast majority of people want their governments to take climate action—but most wrongly think they’re in the minority. The media is partly to blame.

Deustche Welle logo

Where the fossil fuel industry tries to teach kids climate

As the long arm of the fossil fuel lobby enters the classroom, some US science teachers are finding their job requires more than simply imparting knowledge and wisdom

El País

Punto de inflexión: así llevó el cambio climático a transformar su vida a tres latinoamericanos

Un argentino que se convirtió en meteorólogo tras perder a su hija en una inundación, una abogada colombiana con vocación por la justicia climática y una mexicana que siembra líderes ambientales

WUWM 89.7

Wisconsin farmers are adapting to climate change impacts on their farms

Climate change is transforming Wisconsin’s agricultural landscape and a survey of more than 900 farmers across the state found that a majority are concerned about climate change.

Resources for Journalists

Global Warming’s Six Americas are distinct audiences within the American public: the Alarmed, Concerned, Cautious, Disengaged, Doubtful, and Dismissive.
The Peoples’ Climate Vote 2024 is the world’s largest standalone public opinion survey on climate change and the second edition of the Peoples’ Climate Vote global survey.
A representative survey across 125 countries, interviewing nearly 130,000 individuals whose findings reveal widespread support for climate action, published in Nature Climate Change
The Institute for Labor Economics has created global “heat maps” to visualize the results of the Nature Climate Change study about the global public opinion on government action on climate
An international survey, conducted in a partnership between the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication (YPCCC), Data for Good at Meta, and Rare’s Center for Behavior & the Environment, investigating public climate change knowledge, beliefs, attitudes, policy preferences, and behavior among Facebook users
“We find that most people support climate policies and link extreme weather events to climate change. Subjective attribution of extreme weather was positively associated with policy support for five widely discussed climate policies.”