When spurring action against climate change, NGOs and governmental agencies frequently assume people are unmotivated to act because they view it as a problem affecting distant regions far in the future. While this concept (psychological distance), seems intuitive, apparently most people see climate change as an important and timely issue even if its impacts aren’t immediately noticeable. Public opinion polls, some which included over 100,000 people from 121 different countries, showed that over 50% of participants actually believe that climate change is happening either now or in the near future and that it will impact their local areas, not just faraway places. Some studies showed that viewing climate change as impacting distant places and communities made people want to take more action.
www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/04/230421112646.htm