Science-Consistent Climate Health Beliefs As Predictors of Climate Behaviors and Support for Inflation Reduction Act Provisions and a Carbon Emissions Tax

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Abstract

Understanding the factors associated with acceptance of climate action is central in designing effective climate change communication strategies. An exploratory factor analysis of 12 science-consistent beliefs about the existence, causes, and consequences of climate change reveals three underlying factors: climate change [a] is real and human caused, [b] has increased the frequency of extreme weather events, and [c] negatively affects public health. In the presence of demographic, ideological, and party controls, this health factor significantly predicts a 3–6 percentage point increase in respondents’ [a] willingness to advocate for climate change; [b] reported personal pro-climate behaviors; and [c] support for government policies addressing climate change. These results are robust when controlling for respondents’ underlying belief in the existence and causes of climate change, respondent worry, self-efficacy, and respondent belief that extreme weather events and heat waves are increasing. These findings suggest ways to bolster public support for climate policies that may otherwise be at risk.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data Availability Statement

Data, R code, and documentation necessary to replicate the analyses will be deposited in OSF upon publication: https://osf.io/g4wvh/

Acknowledgments

A Robert Wood Johnson Foundation grant provided support for identification of our science-consistent climate health belief items. The authors wish to thank Anthony Leiserowitz, Edward Maibach, Marshall Shepherd, and Eryn Campbell for helpful critique of an early draft of a survey instrument, Ken Winneg for managing the survey process, and Rachel Askew, James Noack, and Jennifer Su of SSRS for their assistance implementing the survey.

Notes

¹ See Appendix B for more details on this exploratory factor analysis and model diagnostics.

² Of the 1,538 respondents, 1,479 (96.2%) provided complete demographic profiles and answers to all questions used in the models presented in Figure 1. Topline results report the distributions for all valid responses, whereas the models report the subset of respondents who completed all items. No missing data is imputed.

Figure 1. Climate Knowledge Predicts Pro-Climate Behaviors and Policy Support

³ These figures omit the coefficients for demographic controls, which can be found in Appendix C.

⁴ Full results can be found in Appendix C.

⁵ The full model results for each of these robustness checks can be found in Appendix C.

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation grant provided support for identification of our science-consistent climate health belief items.