The role of national affluence, carbon emissions, and democracy in Europeans' climate perceptions

Pohjolainen, Pasi, Kukkonen, Iida, Jokinen, Pekka, Poortinga, Wouter ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6926-8545, Adedayo Ogunbode, Charles, Böhm, Gisela, Fisher, Stephen and Umit, Resul 2024. The role of national affluence, carbon emissions, and democracy in Europeans' climate perceptions. Innovation: The European Journal of Social Science Research 37 (2) , pp. 515-533. 10.1080/13511610.2021.1909465

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Abstract

There are differences across Europe in elements of climate citizenship, including climate concern, perceived responsibility, and willingness to support and take climate action. This paper examines how individual-level climate perceptions correspond to a country's contribution to climate change and its ability to develop climate policies. Data from the European Social Survey Round 8 (23 European countries, n = 44,387) was used to explore how national-level factors (affluence as per capita GDP, carbon emissions as per capita CO2 emissions, and democracy as electoral democracy index) are related to individual-level climate perceptions (climate concern, perceived climate responsibility, climate policy support, and personal climate action). The analysis shows that the studied individual-level perceptions are all linked, and that perceived climate responsibility is a factor that helps in understanding how individual-level climate views are connected. Further, national-level affluence and democracy are connected to stronger individual-level perceptions both directly and through mediating their connections. Our results suggest that achieving ambitious climate policy targets in Europe could benefit from focusing on the role of perceived climate responsibility in boosting policy support and action. Moreover, the connection between national-level (democratic and economic) factors and public climate perceptions emphasises the need to place climate policies in a wider context.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Architecture Psychology
Additional Information:	This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)
Publisher:	Taylor and Francis Group
ISSN:	1351-1610
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	16 April 2021
Date of Acceptance:	17 March 2021
Last Modified:	03 Sep 2024 15:00
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/140524

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