More Countries Name Climate Change as Biggest Future Threat

In the latest edition of the Pew Research Center Global Attitudes Survey, people in 13 countries named global climate change as the biggest threat to their nation. In eight more out of the 26 countries that were part of the study, ISIS was named as the biggest concern. One year earlier, 18 out of 38 countries had pointed towards the so-called Islamic State as the biggest threat in the world.

South Korea was one of the countries pivoting towards perceiving climate change as a bigger threat in 2018, joining the UK, Germany, Hungary, Greece and Australia in a change of public opinion. In 2017, most Korean respondents had named "China's power and influence" as their biggest worry.

Awareness of cyperattacks was also on the rise, with respondents from the U.S., South Africa and the Netherlands naming them as the top threat, joining Japan.

Only one country, Poland, had a majority worried about "Russia's power and influence". The survey was conducted in mid-2018 and the results were released in February 2019.