Climate Change, Affluence, and Vulnerability: A Cross-national Analysis of Global Public Opinion and Its Correlates

Abstract

Climate change is emerging as one of the most important issues of the twenty-first century. Recent opinion polls show rising public awareness of climate change. Yet there exists considerable cross-national variation in the intensity of public concern about the issue as well as public willingness to bear the burden of addressing climate change. Drawing on several large-scale multinational surveys, we examine two conditions – countries’ level of economic affluence and degree of vulnerability to climate risks – as key factors underlying cross-national differences in public support for and commitment to proactive climate policies. We find that in contrast to the postmaterialism conjecture, “strong” concern about climate change tends to be higher in developing countries. In addition, contrary to our expectation, climate change vulnerability does not show significant impact on public attitudes. Our analysis indicates that in most countries examined growing global awareness of and concern about climate change has not yet translated into significant public commitment to climate change actions, which portends difficulties in designing unified global policy for climate change.