From Us Climate Beat August 27, 2026

Oat Milk and The 89 Percent Project

The global super-majority that wants action is “the ultimate climate solution”

By CCNow

The 89 Percent message on upcoming cartons of Oatly oat drink. (Caroline Reid / Oatly)

Millions of oat milk drinkers around the world are about to learn that a global super-majority of people want stronger climate action. Oatly, the largest oat drink company in the world, is printing summaries of what it calls “the ultimate climate solution” on every carton it produces; the company reported selling 593 liters of oat milk and related products in 2025 across more than 40 countries. The goal, Oatly’s senior sustainability director Caroline Reid posted on LinkedIn, is to “unlock the power of the 89% of people” who want governments to tackle the climate crisis. This summer, that crisis has led to at least 35,000 excess deaths from extreme heat in Europe alone. 

Oatly launched the awareness campaign in response to Covering Climate Now’s 89 Percent Project. The Guardian, Agence France-Presse, and dozens of other CCNow partners have been reporting for more than a year on peer-reviewed studies and opinion surveys that found that 80 to 89% of the world’s people want governments to “do more” about climate change. The exact percentage varies by country: In Germany (which happens to be the biggest national market for oat milk), it’s 86%; in India, it’s 80%; in the US, it’s 74%. The catch is that most of these people don’t realize they are the overwhelming majority, so they tend to stay silent on climate issues. 

What makes the 89% message “the ultimate climate solution” is that it makes the many other solutions — from technologies such as rooftop solar to policies such as ending fossil fuel subsidies — more achievable. “Governments can enable and support the transition” away from fossil fuels, Reid wrote, and they’re more likely to do so if a massive majority of people “use your voice, use your vote.”  

Oatly presents the 89% solution with the same puckish humor its packaging has long featured, and with an extra visual wink. The text occupies one side of each carton and is divided into two blocks. The first block is 11 words long and reads, “Politicians, these eleven words represent people not interested in climate action.” The second block’s 89 words represent “people who want their leaders and governments to take more action….” They inform the politicians that “a lot of voters could swing your way” if you take action before reassuring them, “Not that we think you’re interested in getting votes for whatever reason, no, of course not.”

Oatly’s initiative, launched last week in its home country of Sweden before expanding internationally, follows a separate 89% campaign begun earlier this year in Japan. Starting in April 2026 and running for the next two years, every TV station and network in Japan will air public service commercials saying that 89% of Japan’s people want stronger climate action, so no one should be afraid to talk about it. In June, in a separate initiative, 136 Japanese news outlets also began spreading the 89% message via social media platforms, news releases, and other forms of public communication.

The 89 Percent Project is ongoing, and our next big event happens on September 23, when Covering Climate Now interviews California governor Gavin Newsom, who is openly considering a 2028 presidential candidacy, during New York Climate Week. Building on California’s history of bipartisan environmentalism, Newsom’s eight years in office have seen an aggressive expansion of renewable energy even as the state’s economy remains the world’s fourth largest. (Journalists wishing to cover the interview should email editors@coveringclimatenow.org.)

It’s worth emphasizing how exceptional an 80 to 89% level of support is for any public issue. When journalists cover elections, we typically label any victory with 60% or more of the vote a “landslide.” An 80 to 89% result would be a “super-landslide.” Even in the US, a petrostate in all but name, 74% of people — roughly three out of four — support stronger climate action. 

Despite this clear global super-majority, most politicians in most countries have not implemented the policies and technologies needed to curb global warming. After all, even to propose such measures has long been fiercely opposed by arguably the richest, most powerful economic enterprise in history: the private and state-owned companies of the international fossil fuel industry. 

The industry has spent decades and vast amounts of money backing politicians that will do its bidding and opposing those who won’t, as well as denying the science showing that burning too much oil, gas, and coal would catastrophically overheat the planet. As extreme weather has gotten worse in recent years, outright denial became less tenable and the industry and its allies have pivoted to arguing that climate change is simply too controversial to even talk about, much less to tackle. Quite a few erstwhile supporters of climate action followed suit, as prominent voices in politics, civil society and the media embraced “climate hushing.” 

The fact that most people favoring stronger climate action mistakenly believe that they are the minority is a perverse tribute to the effectiveness of the industry’s propaganda. The 89% data tell a decidedly different story. They show that an enormous if largely dormant constituency of people in most countries would welcome straight talk and common sense solutions to a crisis that is increasingly affecting their lives. 

That public sentiment represents a game changing opportunity for politicians, activists and citizens who care about preserving a livable planet, and it also sends a message to journalists and newsrooms: Don’t fall for climate hushing. The vast majority of your audience wants to know more about climate change, how it connects to the extreme weather they are increasingly experiencing, and especially how it can be tackled. That’s a subject full of drama, consequences, and heroes and villains — the essence of good storytelling. It’s high time to tell it.

From Us

Q&A: Media Matter’s Evlondo Cooper. ABC, CBS, and NBC aired nearly 200 segments about three record-breaking heat waves in late June and early July. Did they make the climate connection? Media Matters Evlondo Cooper shares his findings, explains how attribution science makes it easy to mention climate change in extreme weather reporting, and why it’s important context for audiences to understand how climate change is impacting their lives. 

NEW! South Atlantic Climate Journalism Hub (SAJCH). CCNow is launching a regional support project for journalists working in Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware. There’s no cost to join or membership fees. For questions or to join, email david@coveringclimatenow.org.

Climate Film Festival. Join CCNow for a live, in-person conversation with climate journalists on Monday, September 21, at the Narrative Change Summit during Climate Week NYC, hosted by Climate Film Festival. We’ll have more details in the coming weeks. RSVP here!

Covering Wildfire Smoke. As climate change fuels more frequent and severe wildfires, plumes of smoke, traveling thousands of miles from the initial blazes, are choking hundreds of millions across the planet. The latest issue of our biweekly newsletter Locally Sourced unpacks the dangers of wildfire smoke and highlights expert tips, resources, and exemplary wildfire coverage. Subscribe here.

Los corales cruzan un punto de no retorno. ¿Por qué los gobiernos no actúan? En la nueva edición de nuestro boletín en español para periodistas de todas las áreas, te traemos las claves para cubrir los corales como una historia humana: quién pesca ahí, quién vive detrás de esa barrera cuando llega un huracán y quién se queda sin trabajo si el turismo se va. Échale un vistazo a las ediciones anteriores y suscríbete para recibir el boletín los miércoles. 

Social story roundup. Outlets around the world continue to report on the impact on farmers of this summer’s heatwaves, droughts, and floods. We’ve got a thread of excellent stories we’re updating daily on our Bluesky account. Save it and follow along! (And share yours!)

Noteworthy Stories

Supreme accountability. Do US states and local governments have the right to sue Big Oil for compensation for climate change damages and deception? The US Supreme Court will hear arguments over that question in a “high-stakes” court case this October. By Dana Drugmand for Inside Climate News…

  • At their annual meeting, members of the right-wing American Legislative Exchange Council voiced confidence that the conservative supermajority on the bench will protect oil companies from “catastrophic outcomes” in the liability lawsuits. By Sarah Hofmann for DeSmog…

Tick tick. As the climate warms, tick populations — and the diseases they spread, such as Lyme — are “exploding.” Shorter winters fail to kill off the tick population and longer warm periods increase the likelihood of human-tick interactions. By Meg Wilcox for Civil Eats… 

Gas growth. The rapid expansion of data centers is driving new demand for fossil gas “unlike any seen before.” A new report finds that the US is planning to construct new gas-fired power plants at a rate nearly double that of China. By Emily Pontecorvo for Heatmap News…

  • Meanwhile, the US EPA announced plans to jettison a federal rule that requires states to solicit public comment on air pollution permits on a range of industrial facilities, including data centers. The change would speed up permitting, but leave communities with little advance notice or method for communicating concerns. By Maxine Joselow for The New York Times…

“National scandal.” New UK government analysis finds that there were 40,000 excess deaths due to extreme heat than would have been expected under normal temperatures between 1986 and 2025. By Damian Carrington for The Guardian…

Climate-first voters. Thousands of Swedes, including climate activist Greta Thunberg, took to the streets last weekend to demand faster climate action from their government. The public outcry comes weeks before the general election. Thirty-seven percent of voters say climate is their top concern, reports France 24. 

Justice served. A Peruvian court handed down lengthy prison sentences this week to four men for their involvement in the 2023 murder of Indigenous Amazon defender Quinto Inuma Alvarado. By Steven Grattan for the Los Angeles Times…

Ancient solutions. Climate change, heatwaves, and water scarcity are motivating cities across India to restore centuries-old stepwells, water storage tanks that are accessed by flights of step. By Ankit Mishra for the BBC…

Quote of the Week

“Liar, liar, the world’s on fire
What you gonna do when it all burns down?
Fire, fire, burnin’ higher
Still got time to turn it all around”

– Dolly Parton lyrics from the 2023 song, “World on Fire”

CCNow in the News

Tracey Compton, Indiana Capital Chronicle’s public editor, interviewed CCNow’s Elena González after observing that, in a summer of storms and tornadoes, she is not seeing much local coverage explaining the link between extreme weather and climate change.

“If you have four heatwaves in a row, and you are not telling that temperatures are intimately linked to climate change — it’s the most clear example — you are not telling your audience the whole story,” González said.

Resources & Events

Jobs, Etc.

Jobs. Earth Justice is hiring a media relations and communications strategist (remote). Dialogue Earth is hiring an Editor (Brazil). Spectrum News is hiring a National Meteorologist (Dallas, Texas). The Houston Chronicle is hiring an Energy and Data Center Reporter (Houston, Texas). Spotlight PA and Grist are hiring an Environment Reporter (Pennsylvania, remote). Twin Cities PBS is hiring an Environmental & Natural Resources Reporter (St. Paul, Minn.). Baltimore Public Media is hiring an Environmental Reporter (Delmarva and Baltimore, Md.). Oxford University is hiring a Oxford Climate Research Network (OCRN) Coordinator (Cambridge, UK). The Climate and Clean Energy Equity Fund is hiring a Marketing & Communications Manager (remote, US). The New York Times is hiring a Climate Policy Correspondent (Washington, DC). The Globe & Mail is hiring an Energy Reporter (Ottawa, Canada). 

Fellowships & Grants.