No, the Average European Does Not Believe in a 'Climate Hoax' — The Numbers Tell the Opposite Story
“The average European believes in the climate hoax”
The argument in brief
The claim is that most Europeans think climate change is a hoax. This is false. According to the 2023 Eurobarometer survey by the European Commission, 93% of Europeans say climate change is a serious problem, and 78% call it very serious — leaving climate denial as a fringe position held by a small minority.
Data: Eurobarometer Special Survey, European Commission, 2023
Why it spread
This claim appeals to people who distrust governments and see mainstream institutions as deceptive. Framing scientific consensus as elite manipulation gives contrarian-minded audiences a sense of insider knowledge — the comforting idea that ordinary people, deep down, share their skepticism. It also travels fast in online spaces where climate policy debates are heated, making it easy to blur the line between opposing a policy and rejecting the science entirely.
The claim circulating online is that the average European secretly believes climate change is a hoax — that ordinary people, beneath the surface of official narratives, reject the science. The evidence flatly contradicts this. Every major survey of European public opinion shows the opposite: acceptance of climate change is the overwhelming norm, not the exception.
The 2023 Eurobarometer survey, commissioned by the European Commission and covering tens of thousands of respondents across all EU member states, found that 93% of Europeans consider climate change a serious problem. That is not a slim majority — it leaves climate skeptics in the single digits. The survey also found broad support for EU climate policies, which would be hard to explain if people thought the whole thing was fabricated.
Other independent sources confirm this. The European Investment Bank Climate Survey 2022–2023 found that 79% of Europeans believe climate change is caused by human activity. Pew Research Center's 2022 Global Attitudes survey found that in France, Germany, Spain, and Greece, between 70% and 90% of people view climate change as a major threat — ranking it the top global concern. The European Social Survey found that outright denial rates across European countries are typically in the single digits.
The strongest version of this claim sometimes points to skepticism about climate policy — and here there is a grain of truth. The Reuters Institute and University of Oxford's 2022 report on climate misinformation found that the more common form of European skepticism is not denial that climate change exists, but doubt about specific government responses to it. Disagreeing with a policy is not the same as calling the underlying science a hoax. That distinction matters.
This kind of misinformation spreads because it flatters a particular worldview — if you already distrust governments and international institutions, it feels satisfying to believe that 'everyone secretly agrees' with you. But wanting something to be true is not evidence that it is. When a claim requires you to disbelieve dozens of independent large-scale surveys all pointing the same direction, that is a strong signal to pause and check the source.
Sources
- Eurobarometer Survey 2023 (European Commission)
93% of Europeans surveyed said climate change is a serious problem, and 78% said it is a very serious problem. The vast majority support EU climate policies.
- European Social Survey / EUI Climate Survey 2021
Across European countries, large majorities of citizens believe climate change is real and caused at least partly by human activity, with denial rates typically in the single digits.
- Pew Research Center – Global Attitudes on Climate Change 2022
In European nations surveyed, climate change ranked as the top global threat, with 70–90% of respondents in countries like France, Germany, Spain, and Greece viewing it as a major threat.
- European Investment Bank Climate Survey 2022–2023
79% of Europeans said climate change is caused by human activity. Only a small minority expressed skepticism about the human cause of climate change.
- Reuters Institute / University of Oxford – Climate Misinformation Report 2022
Climate denial is a fringe position in Europe; the dominant form of climate skepticism is not denial of its existence but skepticism about policy responses, not the science itself.