Zambians Say Climate Change Is Making Life Worse, Want Collective Action to Limit It


Most say “a lot more” effort is needed from government, business and industry, ordinary citizens, and developed countries.

Key findings

  • About half (49%) of Zambians say droughts have become more severe in their region over the past decade, a proportion that has almost doubled since 2017. Only 30% say the same about floods.
  • Fewer than half (44%) of Zambians say they have heard of climate change.
  • Awareness of climate change is particularly low among rural residents, women, poor citizens, and less educated respondents. It is significantly higher among frequent news consumers than among those who rarely follow the news.
  • Twice as many Zambians approve as disapprove of the government’s performance on climate change (40% vs. 19%), while many (41%) say they “don’t know.”

This year’s deadly flooding – described as Zambia’s worst in half a century – put the weather in the news again, joining tropical storms and prolonged drought among the growing threats posed by climate change (VOA, 2023; National Assembly of Zambia, 2022; Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources, 2020; Care, 2023). Zambia ranks among the world’s countries highest in vulnerability and lowest in resilience to climate change, according to the ND-GAIN Country Index (Notre Dame Global Adaptation Initiative, 2020).

The country’s dependence on rainfed agriculture, which employs two-thirds of the workforce, and on hydropower make it particularly vulnerable to climate shocks, threatening food production, electricity supply, and economic growth (Tembo, 2020; Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources, 2020; Kalantary, 2010).