Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Massive heat waves and other major weather events spur green votes, but only if people feel economically secure, according to a new study.
Climate change experiences raise environmental concerns and promote Green voting
Roman Hoffmann, Raya Muttarak, Jonas Peisker & Piero Stanig
Natural climate change episode 12pp. 148–155 (2022)Quote this article
abstract
Public support is fundamental in expanding actions to limit global warming. Here, we analyze how the experience of climate extremes affects people’s environmental attitudes and willingness to vote for Green parties in Europe. To this end, we combined high-resolution climate data with regionally aggregated and harmonized Eurobarometer data (34 countries) and European Parliament election data ( 28 countries). Our findings demonstrate the significant and large impact of temperature anomalies, heat waves and dry weather on environmental concerns and voting for Green parties. The magnitude of the climate effect is substantially different across European regions. It is stronger in regions with Continental or temperate Atlantic climates and weaker in regions with warmer Mediterranean climates. The relationships adjusted for regional income suggest that climate change experience increases public support for climate action but only under favorable economic conditions. The findings have important implications for current efforts to promote climate action in line with the Paris Agreement.
Read more: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-021-01263-8
Sadly this research is overpriced, but I think we have the idea.
This research supports my theory about the cyclical nature of green policies. Every time politicians try to launch the green revolution, economic tanks and voters will discover other priorities. Politicians either back down or lose the next election. Then a few years later, when people have forgotten how bad it was, their whole cycle of apologizing begins all over again.
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