Poll: Most Americans Believe Cities Will Be Lost to Rising Sea Levels

January 23, 2026 by

Many Americans believe climate change climate change is likely to cause some cities to be lost to rising sea levels, and they also expect mass displacement of people and serious damage to the global economy, a new poll shows.

A YouGov survey on climate change and the environment shows respondents think climate change is likely to cause cities to be lost to rising sea levels (56%), mass displacement of people from some parts of the world (57%) and serious damage to the global economy (58%).

The online survey was conducted Dec. 12 through Dec. 15, 2025, among 1,126 U.S. adults. The sample was weighted by factors including gender, age, race, education, 2024 presidential vote, party identification and current voter registration status.

One-quarter of those polled believe climate change is very or somewhat likely climate change will cause the extinction of the human race.

There was a large gap between Democrats and Republicans in sentiment on several points. The largest gaps were on damage to the global economy: 82% of Democrats and 29% of Republicans think damage to the economy will likely result from climate change. There were 81% of Democrats who see likely mass displacement from some parts of the world to others vs. 32% of Republicans who felt that way.

Nearly half of respondents (47%) believed they will see catastrophic impacts of climate change within their lifetime. Adults under 30 were more likely than older Americans to say climate change will do a large amount of harm to them personally in the next 50 years (22% vs. 14%).

Climate Data and Real Estate

Zillow removed a climate risk data feature for California home buyers when the Regional Multiple Listing Service, a database of listings for Realtors, questioned the accuracy of the flood risk models on the site.

Now, a climate policy expert in California is working to put data back, according to an article in Inside Climate News this week.

A man who previously helped launch California’s Fifth Climate Change Assessment is developing a proof-of-concept web plugin that provides climate data to replace what Zillow removed. The plan that when a user views a California Zillow listing, the plugin automatically displays data on wildfire and flood risk, sea level rise and extreme heat exposure, according to the report.

“We don’t need perfect data,” Neil Matouka told Inside Climate News. “We need publicly available, consistent information that helps people understand risk.”

Zillow said the goal is to ensure homebuyers are not being presented with information that could be misleading or unfair. “We have no objection to the display of accurate climate data,” the multiple listing service said in a statement to the website.

To avoid less precise projections that may come from more detailed data in space or in time, Matouka’s plugin is designed for communicating what he said is the “standing potential risks in the area,” not specific property risk, he told the website.

SCS Costliest Peril

A report from Aon plc shows severe convective storms surpassed tropical cyclones as the costliest insured peril of the 21st century, according to an article from L.S. Howard in Insurance Journal.

Total economic losses reached $260 billion, which is 23% below the 21st-century average and the lowest since 2015, Aon’s 2026 Climate and Catastrophe Insight report shows. The economic losses include insured loss claims.

Beneath the quieter surface, insured losses reached $127 billion, 27% above the long-term average, while 2025 marked the sixth straight year that insurance payouts exceeded $100 billion, according to Aon.

SCS accounted for $61 billion in insured losses globally in 2025, with 30 insured loss events hitting $1 billion during 2025—above the historical average of 17, a trend that underscores the accumulation effect of increasingly frequent, medium-sized catastrophes, the report shows.

It also shows that more than 54% of global economic losses occurred in the U.S., with above-average losses driven by wildfires and SCS. Insured losses reached $103 billion, 81% of global industry losses, according to Aon.

Food And Climate

Climate change could expose more than 1 billion people to food crises by 2100, a new study using an AI model shows.

Conflict and inequality could more than triple exposure to food crises compared with sustainability and mitigation scenarios that some entities are recommending, according to a study from The Joint Research Center published in the journal Scientific Reports.

“Conflict and inequality pathways…could expose more than 1.1 billion people—mostly in Africa and Asia—to at least one severe food crisis by century’s end. Of these, more than 600 millions would be under five years old at first exposure, and more than 230 millions would face a crisis in their first year of life,” the study states.

A shift toward environmental and social sustainability could reduce worst-case cumulative exposure by 69%, according to the study.

Direct connections between climate and food security include droughts that can reduce food availability and increase prices through detrimental impacts on agricultural production, while indirect connections where climate impacts the effects of other drivers of food security include increasing the chances of conflict, political instability, and migration, the study shows.

“Extreme weather events and adverse conditions can increase human mortality, disrupt transportation, and fuel the spread of disease and epidemics,” the study states. “These processes can influence local and global food availability through multiple, convoluted pathways of causal links and feedback mechanisms.”

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