This is the report of a global research program conducted by Potential Energy, the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication, the Meliore Foundation and Zero Ideas. It explores citizens' reactions across 23 countries to climate change, to different narratives about and approaches to climate action, and to 18 contrasting climate policies, each presented against an opposing argument. It includes an interactive web tool to interrogate the data country by country. Among other findings, it shows how support for climate action can come from across the political spectrum. While the issue is severely polarized in the United States, that is a unique case. It is much less so elsewhere, and in some countries – Indonesia, Nigeria, India, Türkiye, Kenya – support is actually higher on the political Right. We are missing vital and available support if we position climate action as an exclusively ‘progressive’ idea.

This research report from Zero Ideas and the Centre for Climate Engagement at Hughes Hall, University of Cambridge provides an in-depth analysis of why, and how, companies & boards should use a theory of change approach to drive meaningful climate action. Theory of change is a discipline that boards can use to discover whether what their organizations are doing will drive the impact they are seeking. Used well, a theory of change makes the critical assumptions explicit so they can be tested. Research summarized here shows why this validation is vital. The financialization of climate action, through ESG and sustainable finance, dominates the corporate agenda. But as a way to seek impact, it is severely constrained. It’s not enough for boards to respond to what stakeholders are asking from them, because today’s approach to sustainability is unsustainable. Boards need to understand the fundamentals of how their organizations can seek impact, so they can anticipate and influence conditions as they evolve. Used well, this is the potential of a theory of change.