Abstract
Climate policy across the developed world remains inadequate, despite high levels of concern about climate change among the public. Yet public opinion on climate change is complex, with individuals differing on three key opinion dimensions: belief and concern, issue salience, and support for government action. In this study, we investigate how these dimensions intersect at the individual level. Based on data from an online survey conducted in 2018 in the United Kingdom (N = 787), a latent class analysis reveals that there are five climate change opinion publics. The two largest publics have strong beliefs that climate change is occurring, but view it as a low salience issue, or are wary of government action to address it. We also investigate sociopolitical covariates of each public. By providing a detailed picture of climate change views, these findings can help us to better understand the relationship between public opinion and climate policy.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 102-121 |
| Number of pages | 20 |
| Journal | British Journal of Politics and International Relations |
| Volume | 22 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| Early online date | 13 Nov 2019 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 1 Feb 2020 |
Keywords
- United Kingdom
- climate change
- issue salience
- public opinion
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Political Science and International Relations
- Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law
Access to Document
- CC_publics_BJPIR_R_R_30_05_2019
This is a post-peer-review, pre-copyedit version of an article published in The British Journal of Politics and International Relations. The final authenticated version is available online at: https://doi.org/10.1177/1369148119888827