Climate change awareness: Empirical evidence for the European Union

In this paper, we assess public attitudes on climate change in Europe over the last decade. Using aggregate figures from the Special Eurobarometer surveys on Climate Change, we find that environmental concern is directly related to per capita income, social trust, secondary education, the physical d...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inEnergy economics Vol. 96; p. 105163
Main Authors Baiardi, Donatella, Morana, Claudio
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Kidlington Elsevier B.V 01.04.2021
Elsevier Science Ltd
Subjects
Activism
Campaigns
Climate change
Dummies
Education
Energy economics
Environmental activism
Environmental attitudes
Environmental attitudes/concern
Environmental perception
Environmentalism
Extreme weather
Greenhouse effect
Greenhouse gases
Higher education
Hot weather
Media coverage
Mitigation policy
Paris Agreement
Physical symptoms
Psychological distress
Public opinion
Secondary education
Weather
Young adults
Youth
EU
Climate change
Q54
Q58
Environmental attitudes/concern
Mitigation policy
Q50
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Summary:In this paper, we assess public attitudes on climate change in Europe over the last decade. Using aggregate figures from the Special Eurobarometer surveys on Climate Change, we find that environmental concern is directly related to per capita income, social trust, secondary education, the physical distress associated with hot weather, media coverage, the share of young people in the total population, and monetary losses caused by extreme weather episodes. It is also inversely related to greenhouse gas emissions, relative power position of right-wing parties in government and tertiary education. Moreover, we find a significant, opposite impact for two dummies for years 2017 and 2019, which we respectively associate with the effects of Donald Trump’s denial campaigns and the U.S. Paris Agreement withdrawal announcement, and Greta Thunberg’s environmental activism. •We assess public attitudes on climate change in Europe over the last decade.•We find that environmental concern is directly related to per capita income.•Social trust, education, media coverage, demographic and political factors also matter•Similarly GHG emissions, warming temperatures and damages caused by extreme weather.
ISSN:0140-9883
1873-6181
DOI:10.1016/j.eneco.2021.105163