Resumen: It is not easy to determine the precise moment in which climate change (CC) became a public communication issue in Spain. Among the early references, the national newspaper El País, published a story titled ¿World climate is going to change¿, in November 17, 1976 (García Pérez, 1976), and the term ¿global warming¿, imported from the US, became relatively frequent in the media from 1988. However, academic research about communication of this important issue is relatively recent. A seminar hold in 2005 warned that there were ¿no specific studies on the way Spanish citizenship is facing the CC threat¿. This seminar originated the first study on public perception of CC in Spain (Meira et al., 2009).
According to more recent research, 90.1% of Spanish citizens are aware that CC is happening, whereas only 4.6% are not. Historical records indicate that awareness has grown consistently in the last few years (Meira et al., 2013: 31), with similar percentages to those of other countries (Axa-IPSOS, 2012, p. 4). However, the perception of other aspects of CC diverges significantly from the scientific certainties. Although there exist a strong consensus within the scientific community on the existence and the anthropic origin of CC, polls indicate that only a small part of the Spanish population (39.0%) is aware of this agreement (Meira et al., 2014: 33); a similar perception to that of other countries like the US (Pew Research Center, 2012: 3).
