Fifty-seven percent of Indians living in urban areas fear being displaced due to climate change in the next 25 years, a survey by market research company Ipsos showed.

The survey did not explain how specific climate outcomes lead to displacement, but sea level rise, warmer temperatures and more frequent extreme weather events are considered to be its major drivers.

In India, the sample of the survey, titled “Global Views on Climate Change”, comprised 2,200 individuals. Of these, approximately 1,800 were interviewed face-to-face and 400 online.

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Sixty-six percent of the respondents in the country anticipated a “severe” impact of climate change where they live, in the next 10 years.

“Notably, Indian citizens are split on whether the information provided by their government and businesses [to help them combat climate change] is not enough, the right amount, or too much,” the report on the findings said.

Thirty-seven percent of the respondents said the information provided to them was “not enough”, 29% said it was the “the right amount” and 34% said it was “too much”.

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Indians were also split on their perceptions of climate change coverage in the press. Thirty-seven percent of the respondents in India said that the media exaggerates the impacts of climate change. While 32% felt that the impacts are underestimated, 18% said that climate impacts were represented fairly by the Indian press.

Sixty-three percent of the respondents said that the Indian government is working “very hard” or “fairly hard” to tackle climate change, while 26% said that it is not working “hard enough” or not working “at all”.

The report by Ipsos comes amid the ongoing Conference of Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, or COP28, in Dubai.


Also read: From Odisha to Kerala, a bus of climate migrants