Politics of Climate Change Belief

Climate Change, Anthropocene, & Associated Issues

A sizable (and growing) proportion of the public in Western democracies deny the existence of anthropogenic climate change. It is commonly assumed that convincing deniers that climate change is real is necessary for them to act pro-environmentally. However, the likelihood of 'conversion' using scientific evidence is limited because these attitudes increasingly reflect ideological positions. An alternative approach is to identify outcomes of mitigation efforts that deniers find important. People have strong interests in the welfare of their society, so deniers may act in ways supporting mitigation efforts where they believe these efforts will have positive societal effects.

Donald Trump's actions during the election and his first weeks as US president-elect send a strong message about his belief in climate change, or lack thereof. However, these actions may reflect polarization of climate change beliefs, not climate mitigation behavior. Earlier this year, Donald Trump appointed Myron Ebell, a known climate science denier, to oversee the US Environmental Protection Agency transition (he later chose another sceptic, Scott Pruitt, to run the agency), and said that he would 'cancel' the Paris climate agreement. By the end of his second week as president-elect, it was announced that under Trump funds from NASA's Earth Science Division would be redirected to deep space exploration projects, effectively eliminating a world-renowned center for climate change research (see ref. 1 for a complete overview of Trump's actions). This is notable given that, as discussed in our November News Feature2, climate change was not central to the US presidential campaigns, and is not an issue that motivates electoral decisions. Moreover, it is not clear how such actions speak to the concerns that motivated Trump voters. Instead, these actions reinforce and provide a striking example of the political polarization of climate change. Indeed, the justification given for defunding climate change research at NASA is to abolish “politicized science”.

A meta-analysis published in this journal last year showed that ideology and political orientation were among the strongest predictors of climate change belief. However, there is a stark contrast between the politics of climate change belief and the politics of climate mitigation behavior. For example, Florida went to Trump, but also voted to allow the expansion of solar power. The disconnect between political polarization on climate change and support for clean energy cannot be attributed to unusual voter behavior in an unconventional election cycle. The states that produce the greatest proportion of their electricity from wind, and the top wind-energy producing congressional districts, are all led by Republicans. In fact, many Republicans support policies that promote development of clean and renewable energy not because they reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but because of potential economic benefits. This begs the question of whether the success of climate change communication is actually hampered by mentioning climate change at all.

Original working URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/nclimate3198