Attribution matters: Revisiting the link between extreme weather experience and climate change mitigation responses

Charles A. Ogunbode, Christina Demski, Stuart B. Capstick, Robert G. Sposato

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

104 Citations (SciVal)

Abstract

The literature suggests that extreme weather experiences have potential to increase climate change engagement by influencing the way people perceive the proximity and implications of climate change. Yet, limited attention has been directed at investigating how individual differences in the subjective interpretation of extreme weather events as indications of climate change moderate the link between extreme weather experiences and climate change attitudes. This article contends that subjective attribution of extreme weather events to climate change is a necessary condition for extreme weather experiences to be translated into climate change mitigation responses, and that subjective attribution of extreme weather to climate change is influenced by the psychological and social contexts in which individuals appraise their experiences with extreme weather. Using survey data gathered in the aftermath of severe flooding across the UK in winter 2013/2014, personal experience of this flooding event is shown to only directly predict perceived threat from climate change, and indirectly predict climate change mitigation responses, among individuals who subjectively attributed the floods to climate change. Additionally, subjective attribution of the floods to climate change is significantly predicted by pre-existing climate change belief, political affiliation and perceived normative cues. Attempts to harness extreme weather experiences as a route to engaging the public must be attentive to the heterogeneity of opinion on the attributability of extreme weather events to climate change.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)31-39
Number of pages9
JournalGlobal Environmental Change
Volume54
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 31 Jan 2019

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
This research was supported by the UK Economic and Social Research Council (grant ES/M005135/1 ), the Climate Change Consortium of Wales , and the Cardiff Sustainable Places Research Institute .

Publisher Copyright:
© 2018 Elsevier Ltd

Keywords

  • Attribution
  • Climate change
  • Experience
  • Extreme weather
  • Risk perception

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Global and Planetary Change
  • Geography, Planning and Development
  • Ecology
  • Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law

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