March 6, 2025
As Baltimore-area communities face increasing threats from climate events such as flooding and extreme heat, knowing how people may form different assessments of the impact of climate change on their life and their perceptions about how it may affect them. For Baltimore to have a climate resilient future, solutions will need to be responsive to differences in assessments and perceptions when investing in climate resilience that could inform what adaptation and mitigation strategies may be feasible.
In this research brief, we examine the extent to which Baltimore-area residents are concerned about the future impacts of climate change and how those concerns differ by race, income, age, and geography. We use data from the 2023 Baltimore Area Survey (BAS) to report the share of Baltimore-area residents who reported that they are concerned that climate change will harm them and how they think climate change will affect costs in the coming years.
We found that the overall share of Baltimore-area residents who are concerned that climate change will personally harm them in the future is high compared to the nation and the state of Maryland, with about three-quarters of residents expressing some level of concern. A similar share of Baltimoreans think that climate change will lead people and businesses to pay higher costs in the next five years.
Our analysis of differences between demographic groups led to several important findings. First, in contrast to national surveys that found that younger people are more concerned about climate change, we did not find significant differences in concerns about climate change between age groups in Baltimore. Second, we found racial differences, with Black Baltimore-area residents reporting that they were, on average, more concerned about climate change than White Baltimore-area residents. We found, however, differences at the intersection of race and class with high-income Black Baltimore-area residents being more likely to express concern about climate change than high-income White Baltimore-area residents, with the gap being largest among the highest income groups.
The interaction of race and income shows that there are complex relationships when considering who may be affected. At the most basic level, the results show it is important not to assume that race and income can serve as measures of one another. Delving deeper into the reasons why concerns about climate change vary by income in different directions for Black and White Baltimore-area residents may improve efforts to implement adaptation and mitigation policies that will likely be necessary in the coming years.