Key Takeaways
- A clear top tier of global concern has formed: War and conflict, climate change, and extreme poverty stand apart from all other global challenges. They are the only issues that people consistently rate as both very serious and among the most urgent to address.
- The finding reflects a broader climate of insecurity: Together, these issues capture a prevailing sense of insecurity around safety, environmental stability, and basic economic well-being, reinforcing the context of a volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous world that is shaping expectations among the general public.
- Leadership is judged through the lens of lived uncertainty: As war, climate change, and extreme poverty shape people’s sense of insecurity, organizations that respond with empathy, relevance, and practical support are more likely to build trust and engagement.
We are living in a time of intense uncertainty and insecurity, something that is reflected in recent global public opinion insights from GlobeScan. The war in Iran is creating energy shocks that compound the affordability pressures people were already facing while the climate crisis continues to intensify, with 2025 declared as the start of a “new era of climate extremes” marked by devastating heatwaves, floods, and wildfires across every continent.
Recent GlobeScan insights show that when people in the general public across 33 markets globally were asked to assess both the seriousness of global problems and which ones most urgently need to be addressed, a clear pattern emerges where war and conflict, climate change, and extreme poverty form a distinct top tier of perceived urgency. Together, these concerns capture a broader sense of insecurity spanning safety, environmental stability, and basic economic well-being, reflecting a world where multiple and interconnected existential threats converge.
Other challenges including public health risks, governance issues, and environmental problems beyond climate change are still widely recognized as serious, but fewer people place them among the most urgent priorities for action. What distinguishes war, climate change, and extreme poverty is that they combine high perceived severity with a strong sense of urgency, elevating them above all other concerns. While the data do not show that the general public explicitly link these dynamics, the simultaneous prioritization of these issues reflects the broader global context shaping public anxiety and feelings of insecurity.
Across regions, these three challenges surface consistently, even if one takes precedence over the others locally. War and conflict tends to rank highest in Europe, while climate change often leads in parts of Asia-Pacific, and extreme poverty is especially salient in North America as well as in many African, Latin American, and Middle Eastern markets. Yet in every region, all three appear near the top of the general public’s priorities. This shared pattern underscores a rare level of global convergence around these threats.
WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?
These three issues define the context in which people judge leadership today. They shape how individuals interpret responsibility, credibility, and intent in a world marked by persistent uncertainty and instability. Organizations that acknowledge this lived uncertainty and respond with empathy, relevance, and practical support are better positioned to build trust and sustain engagement. In doing so, they can demonstrate that their actions and communications are grounded in the realities people face, thereby strengthening trust and engagement in a volatile and complex world.
Survey Questions: For each of the following possible global problems, please indicate if you see it as a very serious, somewhat serious, not very serious, or not at all serious problem. And which of these global problems do you think are most important to address?
Countries surveyed: Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Colombia, Egypt, France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Mexico, Morocco, Netherlands, Nigeria, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Thailand, Türkiye, UK, USA, and Vietnam.
