Gen Z, worried about climate change, unified in holding politicians responsible: Poll

(WASHINGTON) — Over one-third of Gen Z are worried they’ll need to move away from their hometowns due to climate change — and a majority of those in the generation across the political spectrum said politicians need to be held accountable, according to a new poll out Wednesday from Gallup and the Walton Family Foundation.

The findings come from a new report that looks at the way Gen Z — those born between 1997 to 2012 — is experiencing and worrying about water issues in the context of climate change — as well as who they believe is responsible to address them. It’s a snapshot from a larger report on the generation’s feelings on climate issues due out in a few months.

“[Gen Z] have been seeing water, and water and climate their whole lives,” Moira Mcdonald, program director for the Environment Program at the Walton Family Foundation, told ABC News. “Their lives have essentially been punctuated by these big moments — the Gulf oil spill back in 2010, the Flint, Michigan, drinking water crisis with lead in the water. They had everyday exposure to the rising seas and warming ocean issue the last few years.”

The poll found that among those in Gen Z who worry they’ll need to move due to climate change, 73% believe it will be because of a water issue such as water pollution, flooding risk, lack of access to clean drinking water and the risk of drought.

The poll also found that 31% of Gen Z are concerned their generation won’t have enough clean water in the future, 72% are concerned about pollution in their waterways and 66% are worried about the health of the fish and oceans.

Among voting age Gen Zers, the poll found that 88% believed politicians are responsible for addressing water issues related to climate change.

Stevie O’Hanlon, communications director for the youth-led climate advocacy organization Sunrise Movement, explained that young people want to see political action on climate issues.

“We have seen a climate change before our eyes for essentially our entire lives, and we look on to a future when we are the age of people like Joe Biden and Donald Trump with a lot of fear about what’s going to happen in the next 50 years,” O’Hanlon said. “Young people are demanding real action from politicians to stop the climate crisis and protect our rights to clean air and water.”

During the 2024 election cycle, climate change has not been polling as a top issue for U.S. voters across all age groups, but some, like Evergreen Action’s senior communications director Holly Burke, say that it may grow in political importance as Gen Z and younger generations age into the voting population.

“Only the eldest of Gen Z are currently able to vote and fully in the electorate and regularly voting. So I think we’re really only beginning to see this demographic shift, but I think it’s already had a huge impact,” Burke told ABC News, citing the political pressure from young activists that spurred national climate action investments including the Inflation Reduction Act.

“[Young climate activists have] already had some big successes, and I think as they become a bigger part of the electorate, they’re only going to become more influential,” she added.

Researchers found that worries around water — and more broadly around climate change — spanned the political spectrum.

Eighty-two percent of voting-age Gen Zers identifying as Republicans and 96% of those identifying as Democrats said they believe that politicians and governments are “very or somewhat responsible” for improving the quality of water resources, according to researchers.

Burke said climate advocacy has been a “deeply partisan” issue for a long time. But noted that she has seen a shift in Republicans’ willingness to engage on climate issues among young conservatives, but said she hasn’t yet seen that change in the larger party.

“I can’t imagine that Republicans are going to immediately come around to the kind of bold climate solutions that I’m looking for, but I would love to have them at the table in a real discussion about how we can reduce emissions and things we can agree on to get done,” she said. “That would be a tremendously positive change.”

Some young conservatives have banded together to push their party toward more engagement on climate issues. The American Conservation Coalition, a nonprofit organization made up of young political conservatives (aged 18-35), was founded in 2017 with a mission to, “build the conservative environmental movement.”

“Organizations like ACC that represent young conservatives who care about this issue send a pretty clear signal to our leaders that this is an issue that will continue to be really important,” ACC’s Vice President of Communications Karly Matthews told ABC News. “But I also think there’s a really rich history of environmental conservation in the conservative movement, in the Republican Party, and that was kind of not emphasized as much or lost a little bit when climate change became kind of this polarizing topic.”

Matthews said she agreed that climate issues “will continue to be depolarized, and I think that’ll be shown from the general populace of young people, kind of uniting on this issue.”

As for Mcdonald of the Walton Family Foundation, when asked by ABC News whether her organization’s research suggests change will move up the ranks of political priority as more of Gen Z reaches the voting age, she replied, “I have my fingers crossed.”

The poll, conducted online by researchers between Aug. 6-14, defined Gen Z as people aged 12 to 27 years old. The poll had a sample of 2,832 and a sampling error of +/- 2.9 points.