Extreme weather events are becoming more frequent and intense due to climate change. Yet, little is known about the relationship between exposure to extreme events, subjective attribution of these events to climate change, and climate policy support, especially in the Global South. Combining large-scale natural and social science data from 68 countries (N = 71,922), we develop a measure of exposed population to extreme weather events and investigate whether exposure to extreme weather and subjective attribution of extreme weather to climate change predict climate policy support. We find that most people support climate policies and link extreme weather events to climate change. Subjective attribution of extreme weather was positively associated with policy support for five widely discussed climate policies. However, exposure to most types of extreme weather event did not predict policy support. Overall, these results suggest that subjective attribution could facilitate climate policy support.

Centre for Climate Change Communication George Mason University Fairfax VA USA

Centre for Research in Communication and Culture Department of Communication and Media Loughborough University Loughborough UK

Centre for Research on Evaluation Science and Technology Stellenbosch University Stellenbosch South Africa

Collegium Helveticum Zurich Switzerland

Department of Advertising and Public Relations Michigan State University East Lansing MI USA

Department of Communication and Media Research University of Zurich Zurich Switzerland

Department of Environmental Systems Science ETH Zurich Zurich Switzerland

Department of Psychobiology and Methodology Faculty of Psychology Universidad Complutense de Madrid Madrid Spain

Department of Psychology University of Amsterdam Amsterdam the Netherlands

Department of Psychology University of Cambridge Cambridge UK

Department of Psychology University of Inland Norway Lillehammer Elverum Norway

Department of the History of Science Harvard University Cambridge MA USA

Federal Office of Meteorology and Climatology MeteoSwiss Zurich Airport Switzerland

Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science ETH Zurich Zurich Switzerland

Institute of Sociology University of Bern Bern Switzerland

Zobrazit více v PubMed

Seneviratne, S. I. et al. in

Newman, R. & Noy, I. The global costs of extreme weather that are attributable to climate change. PubMed PMC

Byers, E. et al. Global exposure and vulnerability to multi-sector development and climate change hotspots.

Howe, P. D. Perceptions of seasonal weather are linked to beliefs about global climate change: evidence from Norway.

Otto, F. E. L. et al. Challenges to understanding extreme weather changes in lower income countries.

Sisco, M. R. The effects of weather experiences on climate change attitudes and behaviors.

Anderson, B., Böhmelt, T. & Ward, H. Public opinion and environmental policy output: a cross-national analysis of energy policies in Europe.

Schaffer, L. M., Oehl, B. & Bernauer, T. Are policymakers responsive to public demand in climate politics?

Keller, E., Marsh, J. E., Richardson, B. H. & Ball, L. J. A systematic review of the psychological distance of climate change: towards the development of an evidence-based construct.

Marlon, J. R. et al. Hot dry days increase perceived experience with global warming.

Ogunbode, C. A., Doran, R. & Böhm, G. Individual and local flooding experiences are differentially associated with subjective attribution and climate change concern.

Spence, A., Poortinga, W., Butler, C. & Pidgeon, N. F. Perceptions of climate change and willingness to save energy related to flood experience.

Weber, E. U. What shapes perceptions of climate change? New research since 2010.

Howe, P. D., Markowitz, E. M., Lee, T. M., Ko, C.-Y. & Leiserowitz, A. Global perceptions of local temperature change.

Ettinger, J., Walton, P., Painter, J., Flocke, S. A. & Otto, F. E. L. Extreme weather events as teachable moments: catalyzing climate change learning and action through conversation.

Hornsey, M. J., Harris, E. A., Bain, P. G. & Fielding, K. S. Meta-analyses of the determinants and outcomes of belief in climate change.

Hoffmann, R., Muttarak, R., Peisker, J. & Stanig, P. Climate change experiences raise environmental concerns and promote Green voting.

Konisky, D. M., Hughes, L. & Kaylor, C. H. Extreme weather events and climate change concern.

Bergquist, P. & Warshaw, C. Does global warming increase public concern about climate change?

Garside, S. & Zhai, H. If not now, when? Climate disaster and the Green vote following the 2021 Germany floods.

Li, Y., Johnson, E. J. & Zaval, L. Local warming: daily temperature change influences belief in global warming. PubMed

Sisco, M. R. & Weber, E. U. Local temperature anomalies increase climate policy interest and support: analysis of internet searches and US congressional vote shares.

Hazlett, C. & Mildenberger, M. Wildfire exposure increases pro-environment voting within Democratic but not Republican areas.

van Valkengoed, A. M. & Steg, L. Meta-analyses of factors motivating climate change adaptation behaviour.

Brulle, R. J., Carmichael, J. & Jenkins, J. C. Shifting public opinion on climate change: an empirical assessment of factors influencing concern over climate change in the U.S., 2002–2010.

Marquart-Pyatt, S. T., McCright, A. M., Dietz, T. & Dunlap, R. E. Politics eclipses climate extremes for climate change perceptions.

Howe, P. D., Marlon, J. R., Mildenberger, M. & Shield, B. S. How will climate change shape climate opinion?

Carmichael, J. T., Brulle, R. J. & Huxster, J. K. The great divide: understanding the role of media and other drivers of the partisan divide in public concern over climate change in the USA, 2001–2014.

Brody, S. D., Zahran, S., Vedlitz, A. & Grover, H. Examining the relationship between physical vulnerability and public perceptions of global climate change in the United States.

Palm, R., Lewis, G. B. & Feng, B. What causes people to change their opinion about climate change?

Marlon, J. R. et al. Detecting local environmental change: the role of experience in shaping risk judgments about global warming.

Xia, Z. et al. A meta-analysis of the relationship between climate change experience and climate change perception.

Wong-Parodi, G. & Garfin, D. R. Hurricane adaptation behaviors in Texas and Florida: exploring the roles of negative personal experience and subjective attribution to climate change. PubMed PMC

Whitmarsh, L. Are flood victims more concerned about climate change than other people? The role of direct experience in risk perception and behavioural response.

van der Linden, S. On the relationship between personal experience, affect and risk perception: the case of climate change. PubMed PMC

Ogunbode, C. A., Demski, C., Capstick, S. B. & Sposato, R. G. Attribution matters: revisiting the link between extreme weather experience and climate change mitigation responses.

Wong-Parodi, G. & Berlin Rubin, N. Exploring how climate change subjective attribution, personal experience with extremes, concern, and subjective knowledge relate to pro-environmental attitudes and behavioral intentions in the United States.

Bresch, D. N. & Aznar-Siguan, G. CLIMADA v1.4.1: towards a globally consistent adaptation options appraisal tool.

Aznar-Siguan, G. & Bresch, D. N. CLIMADA v1: a global weather and climate risk assessment platform.

Cologna, V. et al. Trust in scientists and their role in society across 68 countries. PubMed PMC

Fairbrother, M. Public opinion about climate policies: a review and call for more studies of what people want.

Douenne, T. & Fabre, A. Yellow vests, pessimistic beliefs, and carbon tax aversion.

Andre, P., Boneva, T., Chopra, F. & Falk, A. Globally representative evidence on the actual and perceived support for climate action.

Bergquist, M., Nilsson, A., Harring, N. & Jagers, S. C. Meta-analyses of fifteen determinants of public opinion about climate change taxes and laws.

Nielsen, K. S. et al. Underestimation of personal carbon footprint inequality in four diverse countries. PubMed PMC

Selormey, E. E., Dome, M. Z., Osse, L. & Logan, C.

Vlasceanu, M. et al. Addressing climate change with behavioral science: a global intervention tournament in 63 countries. PubMed PMC

Spektor, M., Fasolin, G. N. & Camargo, J. Climate change beliefs and their correlates in Latin America. PubMed PMC

Leiserowitz, A. et al.

Hase, V., Mahl, D., Schäfer, M. S. & Keller, T. R. Climate change in news media across the globe: an automated analysis of issue attention and themes in climate change coverage in 10 countries (2006–2018).

Gould, R. K., Shrum, T. R., Ramirez Harrington, D. & Iglesias, V. Experience with extreme weather events increases willingness-to-pay for climate mitigation policy.

Visconti, G. & Young, K. The effect of different extreme weather events on attitudes toward climate change. PubMed PMC

Burke, M. et al. Exposures and behavioural responses to wildfire smoke. PubMed

Ettinger, J. et al. Examining contrasting influences of extreme weather experiences on individual climate activism.

Baylis, P. & Boomhower, J.

Calviño-Cancela, M. & Cañizo-Novelle, N. Human dimensions of wildfires in NW Spain: causes, value of the burned vegetation and administrative measures. PubMed PMC

Zscheischler, J. et al. Future climate risk from compound events.

Meiler, S. et al. Intercomparison of regional loss estimates from global synthetic tropical cyclone models. PubMed PMC

Thomas-Walters, L. et al. Communicating the links between climate change and heat waves with the Climate Shift Index.

Berglez, P. & Al-Saqaf, W. Extreme weather and climate change: social media results, 2008–2017.

Osaka, S., Painter, J., Walton, P. & Halperin, A. Media representation of extreme event attribution: a case study of the 2011–17 California drought.

Painter, J., Osaka, S., Ettinger, J. & Walton, P. Blaming climate change? How Indian mainstream media covered two extreme weather events in 2015.

Painter, J. et al. Is it climate change? Coverage by online news sites of the 2019 European summer heatwaves in France, Germany, the Netherlands, and the UK.

Thaker, J., Painter, J., Borwankar, V., Jain, G. & Negi, K. English and regional media coverage of the 2022 heatwave in India.

Mede, N. G. et al. Perceptions of science, science communication, and climate change attitudes in 68 countries – the TISP dataset. PubMed PMC

None

None

Area (Taiwan and outlying islands).

CIESIN. Gridded population of the world, version 4 (GPWv4): basic demographic characteristics, revision 11.

Lange, S. et al. Projecting exposure to extreme climate impact events across six event categories and three spatial scales.

Sauer, I. J. et al. Climate signals in river flood damages emerge under sound regional disaggregation. PubMed PMC

Hersbach, H. et al. The ERA5 global reanalysis.

Lüthi, S., Aznar-Siguan, G., Fairless, C. & Bresch, D. N. Globally consistent assessment of economic impacts of wildfires in CLIMADA v2.2.

Knapp, K. R., Kruk, M. C., Levinson, D. H., Diamond, H. J. & Neumann, C. J.

Röösli, T.

Mede, N. G. & Cologna, V. The TISP dataset.

Cologna, V. Extreme weather event attribution predicts climate policy support across the world.