IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/tpr/glenvp/v14y2014i1p79-106.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Cross-National Public Opinion on Climate Change: The Effects of Affluence and Vulnerability

Author

Listed:
  • So Young Kim

    (So Young Kim is an associate professor of the Graduate School of Science and Technology Policy and the undergraduate director of the Science and Technology Policy Program at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST).)

  • Yael Wolinsky-Nahmias

    (Yael Wolinsky-Nahmias is an associate professor of the practice in environmental studies and political science at the University of Southern California.)

Abstract

Climate change has emerged as one of the most important issues of the twenty-first century. Recent opinion polls show rising public awareness of climate change. Yet considerable cross-national variation exists in the intensity of public concern and in public willingness to pay for addressing climate change. Drawing on twelve multinational surveys, we examine two aggregate conditions—a country's affluence and its vulnerability to climate risks—as key factors underlying cross-national differences in public support for and commitment to costly climate policies. In contrast to the post-materialism thesis, we find “strong” concern about climate change to be higher in developing countries. Contrary to expectation, climate vulnerability had little effect on public concern, but did have significant impact on some measures of personal commitment and support for climate policies. The analysis indicates that, in most countries examined, high concern about climate change is only beginning to translate into personal commitment to action. © 2014 by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Suggested Citation

  • So Young Kim & Yael Wolinsky-Nahmias, 2014. "Cross-National Public Opinion on Climate Change: The Effects of Affluence and Vulnerability," Global Environmental Politics, MIT Press, vol. 14(1), pages 79-106, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:tpr:glenvp:v:14:y:2014:i:1:p:79-106
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/GLEP_a_00215
    File Function: link to full text PDF
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Shah Md. Atiqul Haq & Khandaker Jafor Ahmed, 2017. "Does the perception of climate change vary with the socio-demographic dimensions? A study on vulnerable populations in Bangladesh," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 85(3), pages 1759-1785, February.
    2. Hamish van der Ven & Yixian Sun, 2021. "Varieties of Crises: Comparing the Politics of COVID-19 and Climate Change," Global Environmental Politics, MIT Press, vol. 21(1), pages 13-22, Winter.
    3. Mohamed Hachaichi & Jafaru Egieya, 2023. "Water-Food-Energy Nexus in Global Cities: Addressing Complex Urban Interdependencies," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 37(4), pages 1811-1825, March.
    4. Stefano Predieri & Marta Cianciabella & Giulia Maria Daniele & Edoardo Gatti & Nico Lippi & Massimiliano Magli & Chiara Medoro & Federica Rossi & Camilla Chieco, 2023. "Italian Consumers’ Awareness of Climate Change and Willingness to Pay for Climate-Smart Food Products," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(5), pages 1-14, March.
    5. Todd A. Eisenstadt & Daniel J. Fiorino & Daniela Stevens, 2019. "National environmental policies as shelter from the storm: specifying the relationship between extreme weather vulnerability and national environmental performance," Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences, Springer;Association of Environmental Studies and Sciences, vol. 9(1), pages 96-107, March.
    6. Abdelzaher, Dina M. & Martynov, Aleksey & Abdel Zaher, Angie M., 2020. "Vulnerability to climate change: Are innovative countries in a better position?," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 51(C).
    7. Julio C. Vargas-Burgos & Marco Heredia-R & Yenny Torres & Laura Puhl & Biviana N. Heredia & Jhenny Cayambe & Julio Hernán-González & Alexandra Torres & Marcelo Luna & Theofilos Toulkeridis & Bolier To, 2023. "Livelihoods and Perceptions of Climate Change among Dairy Farmers in the Andes: Implications for Climate Education," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(17), pages 1-16, September.
    8. Céline Nauges & Sarah Ann Wheeler & Kelly S. Fielding, 2021. "The relationship between country and individual household wealth and climate change concern: the mediating role of control," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 23(11), pages 16481-16503, November.
    9. Adeline Otto & Dimitri Gugushvili, 2020. "Eco-Social Divides in Europe: Public Attitudes towards Welfare and Climate Change Policies," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(1), pages 1-18, January.
    10. Sam Crawley & Hilde Coffé & Ralph Chapman, 2022. "Climate Belief and Issue Salience: Comparing Two Dimensions of Public Opinion on Climate Change in the EU," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 162(1), pages 307-325, July.
    11. Mark Purdon, 2015. "Advancing Comparative Climate Change Politics: Theory and Method," Global Environmental Politics, MIT Press, vol. 15(3), pages 1-26, August.
    12. Magnus Bergquist & Andreas Nilsson & Niklas Harring & Sverker C. Jagers, 2022. "Meta-analyses of fifteen determinants of public opinion about climate change taxes and laws," Nature Climate Change, Nature, vol. 12(3), pages 235-240, March.
    13. Donatella Baiardi, 2021. "What do you think about climate change?," Working Paper series 21-16, Rimini Centre for Economic Analysis.
    14. Neli Aparecida de Mello-Théry & Eduardo de Lima Caldas & Beatriz M. Funatsu & Damien Arvor & Vincent Dubreuil, 2020. "Climate Change and Public Policies in the Brazilian Amazon State of Mato Grosso: Perceptions and Challenges," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(12), pages 1-20, June.
    15. Osman M. Jama & Abdishakur W. Diriye & Abdulhakim M. Abdi, 2023. "Understanding young people’s perception toward forestation as a strategy to mitigate climate change in a post-conflict developing country," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 25(6), pages 4787-4811, June.
    16. Donatella Baiardi, 2021. "What do you think about climate change?," Working Papers 477, University of Milano-Bicocca, Department of Economics, revised Aug 2021.
    17. Mercedes Varela-Losada & Pedro Vega-Marcote & María Lorenzo-Rial & Uxío Pérez-Rodríguez, 2021. "The Challenge of Global Environmental Change: Attitudinal Trends in Teachers-In-Training," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(2), pages 1-19, January.
    18. Patrick Bayer & Federica Genovese, 2020. "Beliefs About Consequences from Climate Action Under Weak Climate Institutions: Sectors, Home Bias, and International Embeddedness," Global Environmental Politics, MIT Press, vol. 20(4), pages 28-50, Autumn.
    19. Amanda Kennard, 2021. "My Brother’s Keeper: Other-regarding preferences and concern for global climate change," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 16(2), pages 345-376, April.
    20. Todd A. Eisenstadt & Karleen Jones West, 2017. "Indigenous Belief Systems, Science, and Resource Extraction: Climate Change Attitudes in Ecuador," Global Environmental Politics, MIT Press, vol. 17(1), pages 40-58, February.
    21. Loredana Antronico & Roberto Coscarelli & Francesco De Pascale & Dante Di Matteo, 2020. "Climate Change and Social Perception: A Case Study in Southern Italy," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(17), pages 1-24, August.
    22. Llewelyn Hughes & David M. Konisky & Sandra Potter, 2020. "Extreme weather and climate opinion: evidence from Australia," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 163(2), pages 723-743, November.
    23. Alex Lo & Alex Chow, 2015. "The relationship between climate change concern and national wealth," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 131(2), pages 335-348, July.
    24. Emma Weitkamp & Lindsey McEwen & Patty Ramirez, 2020. "Communicating the hidden: toward a framework for drought risk communication in maritime climates," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 163(2), pages 831-850, November.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    climate change;

    JEL classification:

    • Q54 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Climate; Natural Disasters and their Management; Global Warming

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:tpr:glenvp:v:14:y:2014:i:1:p:79-106. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Kelly McDougall (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://direct.mit.edu/journals .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.