CT residents increasingly concerned about climate change, Yale survey finds
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The Yale Program on Climate Change Communication conducts nationwide surveys twice a year, tracking Americans’ views on climate change since 2008. The data shows a clear trend in Connecticut: More people believe climate change is happening, worry about its impacts, and support actions to address it.
One survey question asks whether respondents have personally experienced the effects of global warming.
While opinions remain closely divided in Connecticut, the number of residents who agree they have experienced climate change firsthand has grown over time.
“The trend is very clear that people are increasingly seeing that climate change is not some distant far away problem, but something that’s actually affecting the people, places, and things that we love right here, right now,” said Dr. Anthony Leiserowitz, director of the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication.
Leiserowitz said Connecticut has seen notable shifts in public opinion during the past decade.
“Connecticut-ers are basically increasing their belief in climate change, their worry about climate change, their support for climate action, on average about 10 percentage points over the past decade,” he said.
The survey also explores who Americans believe should do more to address climate change.
In Connecticut, most respondents say corporations should take more action to reduce global warming. A majority also said Congress should do more to address the issue.
With the 2026 midterm elections approaching, climate policy could become an important factor for many voters.
Leiserowitz said roughly 6 in 10 Americans report they would rather vote for a candidate who supports action on global warming.
“And likewise, they want to hear more often from political candidates about what their plans are once they’re elected, once they are in office, what they plan to do,” he said.
Although more people report experiencing climate-related impacts, Leiserowitz said personal experience does not automatically lead people to connect extreme weather with climate change.
“So it’s not enough to just experience a heat wave,” he said. “You need somebody to help you understand, to interpret this heat wave and say, yes, there’s actually a scientific explanation, and that scientific explanation includes climate change as making these events more frequent and more severe.”
Researchers say that as Connecticut experiences more extreme heat, heavy rainfall, and other climate-related impacts, public awareness of climate change could continue to grow.
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