Puerto Ricans Are Among the Most Worried About Climate Change
Residents of Puerto Rico are among the most worried in the world about climate change according to a new study by the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication (YPCCC).
The study, conducted in partnership with Rare and Data for Good at Meta, found that 93% of Puerto Ricans said they are “very worried” or “somewhat worried” about climate change; 84% said climate change will harm future generations “a great deal”; and 61% said climate change will harm them personally “a great deal.” Puerto Rico also had the highest number of respondents in the world who believe that climate change should be a high government priority.
"This says that the population seems highly attuned to climate change, potentially because of their exposure and experiences with extreme weather that have accumulated over the decades,” said Marija Verner, a postdoctoral associate at the Yale School of the Environment. “The second takeaway is that personal experience matters in how people approach these issues, and the third is really underscoring community resilience. Puerto Rico has built pretty strong adaptive capacity and strong support networks.”
The report, “International Public Opinion on Climate Change: 2023,” describes climate change beliefs, attitudes, policy preferences, and behaviors among Facebook users in 100 countries, territories, and geographic groups representing 187 countries and territories worldwide. It is one of a series of reports that YPCC has been conducting across the world in order to understand climate change attitudes, fears and behaviors. The survey was conducted by Meta from August 3 – September 3, 2023. Researchers at YPCCC are using the survey data to release findings related to public views on the links between climate change and extreme weather in the Global South and adoption of, and barriers to, behaviors that can reduce personal and household carbon dioxide emissions in the Global North.
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Fenichel Paper Honored for Enduring Impact on Epidemic Modeling
Eli Fenichel, the Knobloch Family Professor of Natural Resource Economics, and co-authors have been awarded the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association’s 2025 Paper of Enduring Quality Award for their 2011 PNAS paper on integrating human behavior into models of infectious disease. The study laid key foundations for interdisciplinary research, bridging economics and epidemiology—an approach that proved critical during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I saw a lot of epidemiologists and economists recommending it to each other to figure out how to collaborate on COVID-19 research,” Fenichel said. “I think it set a benchmark for interdisciplinary research on epidemics.”
The award will be presented at the AAEA & WAEA Joint Annual Meeting in Denver, Colorado, on July 28.
Eli Fenichel
Knobloch Family Professor of Natural Resource Economics
Yale Center for Natural Carbon Capture-related Nonprofit Wins Global Carbon Removal Prize
Mati Carbon, an environmental nonprofit that builds on enhanced rock weathering research by scientists at the Yale School of the Environment and Yale Center for Natural Carbon Capture (YCNCC), won the $50 million XPRIZE Carbon Removal international competition for pioneering a crushed-rock solution that pulls carbon from the air and restores farmland.
Noah Planavsky, associate professor of earth and planetary sciences, who is a faculty member at YCNCC and head of Mati Carbon’s scientific advisory board, developed methods to track carbon fluxes that the nonprofit used in pilot programs concentrated on small farms in the Global South. More than 1,300 groups from 88 countries took part in the competition, which required teams to create and demonstrate a system for pulling CO2 directly from the atmosphere or oceans and durably sequester it.
Part of a suite of natural carbon solutions, enhanced rock weathering has been a focus of research by Peter Raymond, the Oastler Professor of Biogeochemistry at YSE, who will become director of YCNCC on June 30, and James Saiers, the Clifton R. Musser Professor of Hydrology, who also serves on YCNCC’s leadership.
All Communication Is Local
As local governments increasingly address the need to build climate resiliency and adapt effective climate mitigation strategies, it is vital that they develop and implement effective communication plans. However, climate communication has not always been a priority, according to the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication (YPCCC). A discussion hosted by YPCCC on April 15, 2025, explored effective communication strategies being employed by municipal communications officials around the country. The key, the officials said, is to embed communications at the beginning of an initiative and make climate mitigation efforts relevant to the daily lives of community members by connecting the initiatives to efficient and cheaper energy bills, job creation, and healthier air.
“Instead of being conceptual and abstract about decarbonization, tell a story about actual people who are making their house efficient and saving money. These kinds of stories consistently connect with people across the political spectrum and across levels of understanding and engagement on climate change,” said Julia Trezona Peek, chief strategy and partnership officer at the Urban Sustainability Directors Network.
Credit: Denver Climate Action, Sustainability & Resiliency