Understanding public concern about climate change in Europe, 2008–2017: the influence of economic factors and right-wing populism

Abstract

European survey data shows strong temporal fluctuations in climate change concern within European countries and large differences in concern between these countries. However, there is as yet no comprehensive understanding of what drives these longitudinal and cross-sectional patterns. To fill this knowledge gap, this study analyzes data of over 155,000 survey respondents from 28 European countries over the period 2008-2017. This study is the first to apply within-between random effects models to simultaneously analyze longitudinal and cross-sectional determinants of climate change concern, and examine if and how the influence of these determinants has changed over time. Substantively, it researches the nexus between climate change and two other crises that have captured the imagination of European publics over the studied period: the liberal democracy crisis and the economic crisis. The former is characterized by the rise of right-wing populist parties in Europe. Right-wing populism is often at odds with climate change policies, and its rise in popularity could have undermined public concern about climate change. We find only a weak negative longitudinal relationship between such concern and the popularity of right-wing populist parties, and no significant cross-sectional relationship. We find that economic performance is strongly positively associated with concern, with GDP per capita being most important for explaining crosscountry differences in concern, and deviations in unemployment being most important for explaining longitudinal within-country change. However, this negative longitudinal relationship with unemployment weakens considerably over time, illustrating the importance of including dynamic effects in modeling efforts to generate more reliable results. Key policy insights. The percentage of European respondents mentioning climate change as one of the most serious world problems declined from 65% in 2008 to 43% in 2017.. This study does not find a strong direct relationship between the rise of climate skeptic right-wing populist parties and public concern about climate change.. Economic factors are important predictors of climate change concern, with GDP per capita being the dominant driver of between-country differences, and unemployment the dominant within-country predictor.. The marginal impact of unemployment was much stronger during, rather than after, the economic crisis.

Voting for Tomorrow: Climate Change, Environmental Concern, and Green Voting

“…European Parliament elections are convenient for our purpose for several reasons: they take place approximately at the same time in all EU countries; the use of proportional rules for the allocation of seats implies that the extent to which voters engage in strategic voting (i.e., voting for the "lesser evil") is limited, and therefore vote shares provide a more accurate snapshot of the first preferences of voters; it is also convenient that electoral rules are approximately similar across countries, making the election returns more comparable across space. Third, we provide new empirical evidence on the relationship between economic conditions and public views on environmental issues, complementing previous findings in the empirical literature (Duijndam and Beukering, 2020;Kenny, 2020). Not only does covering a long series of data on concern and voting over the last two and three decades, respectively allows us to explore time variations extensively, our large cross-section of subnational regions also captures heterogeneity between units of observation.…”

“…These include economic conditions that may compete with environmental concerns, especially during times of economic uncertainty, such as in the aftermath of financial crises, when individuals may opt to prioritize economic and financial needs (Ratter et al, 2012;Scruggs and Benegal, 2012). Other influential factors are related to individual ideological predispositions, political worldviews, and belief systems (Duijndam and Beukering, 2020;Hazlett and Mildenberger, 2020), which affect perceptions about climate change. Demographic factors including age, gender and education, can play an important role for cognitive processes and can also influence the exposure and vulnerability shaping climate change awareness and attitudes (Lutz and Striessnig, 2015;Muttarak and Chankrajang, 2016;Poortinga et al, 2019).…”

Changing opinions on a changing climate: the effects of natural disasters on public perceptions of climate change

“…For example, Kahn and Kotchen ( 2011 ) examine how macroeconomic conditions influence public perception of climate change, finding that states with higher unemployment rates experience reductions in the probability that individuals think climate change is happening, and in support for government action to address climate change. Research by Duijndam and van Beukering ( 2021 ) finds income per capita and unemployment rates to be important determinates of individual climate change beliefs in European countries. Research by Meyer ( 2020 ) finds a similar result for the USA.…”

How Climate Change Science Is Reflected in People’s Minds. A Cross-Country Study on People’s Perceptions of Climate Change

“…Poortinga et al [ 48 ] report an increasing climate change skepticism in the US and Europe. The percentage of European citizens considering climate change as one of the most severe problems declined from 65% in 2008 to 43% in 2017 [ 39 ]. Despite this decline, the 2021 Eurobarometer on climate change informed that 93% of the surveyed people considered climate change a serious problem, and 78% of them as very serious [ 42 ].…”