What Do You Think about Climate Change?

Abstract

To answer this question, this paper reviews the huge and growing body of empirical literature on climate change awareness and summarizes insights emerging from a critical review of about 140 papers. In particular, this survey provides (i) a historical overview of climate change awareness worldwide, (ii) a guide to the most widely used datasets, with particular attention to the question wording employed to measuring climate change awareness when the analysis is performed at the individual level; (iii) a detailed review of the main socio-economic and climatological determinants of climate change awareness, such as age, gender, education, political values, the experience of extreme weather conditions, social and institutional trust and the stage of development of the country where people live; and (iv) a summary of the main implications of these findings in terms of public policy responses.

Keywords: climate change awareness, individual perceptions, question wording, socio-economic determinants; policy implications