Climate-Change Fears Drop, AI Anxiety Pops: What Will Happen In 2026?

If the last years have shown us anything, it’s that a lot can change, fast.

While many events cannot be foreseen, can others?

Ipsos asked more than 23,600 people across 30 countries about their predictions for the coming year, with a survey on topics ranging from artificial intelligence to the climate and the World Cup.

This data is based on one survey alone and although it does not focus on additional knowledge of experts and analysts, it does capture a snapshot of sentiments and standpoints in different countries and regions.

As Statista’s Anna Fleck shows in the following chart, many people around the globe seem to be in agreement that global temperatures will rise in 2026. Around eight in ten respondents (78 percent) said that next year, we can expect the world to warm further still. This belief was most widespread in Indonesia (91 percent), Singapore (90 percent), South Korea (86 percent) and Malaysia (85 percent). In a similar vein, nearly seven in ten (69 percent) of respondents said they expect to see more extreme weather events in the country that they live in than last year. Meanwhile, only 48 percent of respondents felt that their government will introduce more demanding targets to reduce emissions. Respondents in Indonesia were the most optimistic about this prospect (80 percent).

You will find more infographics at Statista

Views on whether the conflict currently raging in Ukraine will come to an end in 2026 were pessimistic.

Only around three in ten people (29 percent) thought it would be the case in Ukraine, although this marks a three percentage point increase on predictions from the same time one year ago.

In terms of the online world, two thirds of respondents (67 percent) said that they expect AI will replace jobs in their country in 2026, up three percentage points from last year.

At the same time, 43 percent agreed that AI will lead to many new jobs being created in their country.

Other job worries persist, with almost half of the total respondents predicting that their country will be in recession in 2026, with Turkey (68 percent), Thailand (66 percent) and Romania (63 percent) reporting the highest shares of people who held this opinion.

Nearly two in five worldwide (38 percent) think major stock markets around the world will crash.

While Trump has repeatedly asserted that he would like a Nobel Peace Prize, the vast majority thinks this is unlikely to happen. A total of 21 percent of respondents said they think this is likely, compared to 64 percent who said they thought it was not. India had the highest share of respondents who said they thought it would happen, at 51 percent. In the United States, 25 percent said the same.