State-level trends in Americans' climate views, 2008-2020

Keywords: climate change, public opinion, risk perceptions, cartography
Session Type: Virtual Paper Abstract
Day: Friday
Session Start / End Time: 2/25/2022 05:20 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada)) - 2/25/2022 06:40 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada))
Room: Virtual 17

Abstract

Public attitudes toward climate change in the US influence climate and energy policies and guide individual mitigation and adaptation behaviors. Over the last decade, as issue salience has increased, uniform national strategies have given way to heterogeneous actions led by states, cities, regional coalitions and other subnational actors, with important implications for policy and justice. Yet, our understanding of public policy support and attitudes towards global warming remains largely restricted to national trends and static geographic cross-sections. Here we use a large US survey dataset (N = 27,075) to estimate dynamic changes in 19 climate change beliefs, risk perceptions, and policy preferences at the state level for the past 12 years (2008-2020). State-level climate views have become increasingly heterogeneous, with increasing beliefs and risk perceptions in liberal areas contrasted with relative stability in conservative areas. State support for climate policy, in contrast, shows less spatial variability. Year-by-year estimates of state-level climate opinions can support further analyses of how and why public understanding of climate change is evolving, and where public opinion is aligned and misaligned with mitigation and adaptation efforts at subnational geographic scales.