Canadians and Americans report growing divide on climate change

Canadian and American flags fly near the Ambassador Bridge at the Canada-U.S. border crossing in Windsor, Ont., on Saturday, March 21, 2020. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Rob Gurdebeke

There is a growing rift between Canadians and Americans when it comes to views on climate change, according to a new poll released Thursday indicating fewer than half of Americans now believe climate change is real and is primarily caused by human activity.

The Research Co. survey found 48 per cent of Americans think climate change is a fact and is mostly caused by emissions from vehicles and industrial facilities. That’s down three per cent since a similar poll conducted by the same firm in November 2024.

Canadians, on the other hand, show a growing consensus on the issue, with nearly two-thirds of respondents (63 per cent) now saying the climate change is real and is primarily human-caused, versus 60 per cent back in November 2024.

The 15-percentage-point difference between the two countries highlights a growing divergence in opinion on the issue. Research Co. says there was a seven per cent difference in 2020, nine per cent in 2022, and a 10 per cent spread in 2024.

“The difference in perceptions of human-made climate change in Canada and the United States has never been as large as it is in 2026,” says Research Co. in a statement accompanying the results.

“While 13 per cent of respondents in the United States believe climate change is a theory that has not been proven, only 9 per cent of respondents in Canada concur.”

The survey found Americans who do believe in climate change are also more likely to believe it is mostly caused by natural changes (28 per cent) than Canadians (21 per cent).

Politics and climate

Research Co. president Mario Canseco says climate change views on both sides of the border are strongly linked to political affiliations.

“Sizeable majorities of Democrats in the United States (67 per cent) and Liberal Party voters in Canada (81 per cent) think climate change is real and human-made,” Canseco said. “The proportions drop drastically among American Republicans (34 per cent) and Canadian Conservatives (44 per cent).”

Fewer than one-in-10 Canadian respondents (9 per cent) said climate change in “not a crisis at all,” versus 16 per cent of Americans, according to the survey. Among those respondents, four per cent of Liberal voters in the 2025 election said climate change is “not a crisis at all” compared to 19 per cent of Conservative voters.

Despite the cross-border rift, there appears to be some consensus on which entities should be doing more to deal with the impacts of a changing climate that are affecting people today—albeit to differing degrees.

Sixty-nine per cent of Canadians and 63 per cent of Americans said governments should do more to mitigate the effects of climate change, while 70 per cent of Canadians and 62 per cent of Americans said corporations should contribute more.

Sixty-one per cent of Canadians and 55 per cent of Americans said individual citizens need to increase their efforts to address the effects of a changing climate.

The Research Co. survey was conducted online from March 22 to March 24 among a representative sample of 1,001 adults in Canada and 1,002 in the U.S. The margin of error was plus or minus 3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20, according to the company.