The 89 Percent Project, also styled as  #The89Percent or The 89% Project, is a project of Covering Climate Now that partners with media organizations to promote articles that advocate for policies that restrict carbon production. ¹ The Guardian is the project’s “lead partner,” promoting the project and providing other partner organizations with articles to republish in support of The 89 Percent Project’s advocacy. ^{2 3}

Background

The 89 Percent Project is a project of Covering Climate Now that was launched during Earth Week 2025. ¹ It partnered with media companies across 20 countries to promote ideas that officials and environmentalist groups are “too polite” in their attempts to diminish conventional energy use. It also argues that the “vast majority” of people support ending conventional energy use, so it campaigns to increase pressure on officials to enact environmentalist policies. ⁴

The 89 Percent Project’s name is based on a study published by Nature Climate Change claiming that 89 percent of individuals surveyed “state that their national government should do more to fight global warming.” ⁵ As a partner with The 89 Percent Project, left-wing British media outlet The Guardian publishes articles stating that the project is campaigning for policies that will restrict carbon production and emissions, and uses the responses from the report to claim that policymakers need to enact such restrictions to align with the respondents. ⁶

Partner Organizations

The 89 Percent Project lists The Guardian and Agence France-Presse as its lead partners. It also lists the National Observer, Deutsche Welle, Corriere della Sera, Asahi Shimbun, Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism, The Nation, Rolling Stone, Scientific American, and TIME Magazine as “core partners.” ³

The Guardian has been a partner of The 89 Percent Project since its founding in April 2025 and publishes articles promoting The 89 Percent Project’s narrative that most people expect more environmentalist policies to counter climate change. It uses the research to argue that the belief that climate change is a real threat is a majority opinion. The Guardian supports the project by being critical of survey respondents who are not inclined or less inclined to contribute financially to environmental causes and is particularly critical of wealthier individuals who are less inclined to fund environmental causes. ⁷

Activities

The 89 Percent Project collaborates with media companies and provides research to journalists on how to report on environmental issues, using the data from the Nature Climate Change report. It coordinates surges in reporting across partner media organizations globally to support its narrative that most people want governments to place restrictions on carbon emissions. It also encourages the use of the hashtag #the89percent to further promote the initiative. ⁸

Through Covering Climate Now, The 89 Percent Project operates a “sharing library” as a secure database exclusive to partner organizations. The database allows partners to submit stories for other partners to promote through their media distribution networks. Additionally, Covering Climate Now states that partners have access to select articles to republish from The Guardian, Reuters, HuffPost, the Mississippi River Basin Ag & Water Desk of the University of Missouri, Mongabay, and Knowable Magazine. ²

1. “Frequently Asked Questions.” The 89 Percent Project. Accessed September 26, 2025. https://89percent.org/faq/.
2. “We facilitate content sharing between our partners, free of charge, because the climate story deserves as wide an audience as possible.” Covering Climate Now. Accessed September 27, 2025. https://coveringclimatenow.org/sharing-library/. 
3. “About + Contact.” The 89 Percent Project. Accessed September 27, 2025. https://89percent.org/about/. 
4. “Most of the world’s population wants stronger climate action. They just don’t realize that they are a majority.” The Guardian. April 22, 2025. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/apr/22/89-percent-project-climate-change 
5. Andre, P., Boneva, T., Chopra, F. et al. Globally representative evidence on the actual and perceived support for climate action. Nat. Clim. Chang. 14, 253–259 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-024-01925-3. 
6. Renwick, Danielle. “An outlier’: why does the US rank low on demands for climate action?” The Guardian. April 23, 2025. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/apr/23/climate-action-politicians.
7. “The 89% Project.” The Guardian. Accessed September 27, 2025. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/series/the-89-percent-project. 
8. “Frequently Asked Questions.” The 89 Percent Project. Accessed September 27, 2025. https://89percent.org/faq/.