These Countries Believe Fighting Climate Change Could Grow their Economy

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Since the industrial revolution, economic growth – both in the U.S. and much of the rest of the developed world – has been driven largely by the burning of fossil fuels. From agriculture and manufacturing to power generation and transportation, the same sectors that have made many countries wealthy have also accelerated the pace of climate change. Partially as a result, many see the goal of mitigating the worst effects of climate change to be at cross purposes with economic growth and prosperity.

The perspective of the environment and the economy as mutually exclusive objectives has been perpetuated by those with entrenched interests in the fossil fuel industry. Newly discovered documents reveal that oil and gas advocacy groups have long been aware of the environmental risks associated with fossil fuels, despite decades of public denial. More recently, several countries – including Saudi Arabia, the world’s second largest producer of oil – lobbied to downplay language describing the environmental toll of fossil fuels in the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 6th Assessment Report.

The United States is one of the wealthiest and heaviest polluting countries in the world, and according to a sweeping international survey conducted by the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication, only 45% of Americans think fighting climate change will improve economic growth and create jobs. Meanwhile, 54% of the U.S. population think fighting climate change will either have no impact or a negative impact on economic growth and job creation. In other parts of the world, however, people are far more likely to believe that protecting the environment can be a driver of economic prosperity.

Using data from the 2022 YPCCC report International Public Opinion on Climate Change, Climate Crisis 247 identified the countries where the most people believe fighting climate change will improve economic growth and create jobs. Of the more than 100 countries included in the survey, we ranked the 20 in which at least half of the population believe that fighting climate change will positively impact the economy. In the case of a tie, the country with the larger population ranks higher. Supplemental data on gross domestic product per capita, unemployment, and population are from the World Bank. The YPCCC bears no responsibility for the analyses or interpretations of the data presented here.

Compared to much of the rest of the world, many of the countries on this list are struggling economically – suggesting that they may have little vested interest in the production or consumption of fossil fuels. In 14 of the 20 countries on this list, GDP per capita is lower than the $13,673 global average. Similarly, in half of these countries, the unemployment rate exceeds the 4.9% global average.