Citation: Sandvik, H. (2008) Public concern over global warming correlates negatively with national wealth. Climatic Change, 90, 333–341.
doi: 10.1007/s10584-008-9429-6 [what’s a doi?].
Key words: Climate politics, gross domestic product, lay people’s concern over global warming, public awareness of global warming.
Abstract: It has been shown previously that the awareness and
concern of the general public about global warming is not only a function of
scientific information. Both psychological and sociological factors affect the
willingness of laypeople to acknowledge the reality of global warming, and to
support climate policies of their home countries. In this paper, I analyse a
cross-national dataset of public concern about global warming, utilising data
from 46 countries. Based on earlier results at the national and regional level,
I expect concern to be negatively correlated to national measures of wealth
and carbon dioxide emissions. I find that gross domestic product is indeed
negatively correlated to the proportion of a population that regards global
warming as a serious problem. There is also a marginally significant tendency
that nations’ per capita carbon dioxide emissions are negatively correlated to
public concern. These findings suggest that the willingness of a nation to
contribute to reductions in greenhouse gas emissions decreases with its share
of these emissions. This is in accordance with psychological findings, but
poses a problem for political decision-makers. When communicating with the
public, scientists ought to be aware of their responsibility to use a language
that is understood by laypeople.
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