Climate change denial, political beliefs, and cities: evidence from Copenhagen and Houston

Abstract

Using data from surveys of Copenhagen and Houston, this article examines climate change denial in two cities with dramatically different environmental traditions. Previous research on climate change beliefs conceptualizes political views along a spectrum, from right-wing party members to moderates to left-wing party members or along a left-right ideological scale. Findings indicate that conventional assumptions about political identification and climate change beliefs vary in the two cities. In Copenhagen, respondents in right-wing parties have higher rates of climate change denial compared to the politically unaffiliated, but those on the left do not have lower rates. While left-leaning respondents in Houston have lower odds of climate change denial than moderates, right-leaning respondents do not have higher rates of denial. These results suggest that individual-level political beliefs do not always have a continuous effect on climate change attitudes. The findings in these two divergent cities – one a green capital, the other an oil and gas hub – suggest the need for greater interest in examining climate change beliefs in cities.

Keywords:

• climate change beliefs
• climate change denial
• Copenhagen, Denmark
• Houston, Texas, USA
• Climate Change

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Michael O. Emerson and James R. Elliott for their help and support for this research, as well as audiences at the 2015 Natural Hazards Workshop and the 2015 annual meeting of the Southern Sociological Society.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. I conducted an additional logistic regression analysis of Houston conceptualizing the political party in four categories: Republicans, Democrats, Independents, and Others, the latter of whom comprise 15.3% of the sample. This test was conducted to confirm that combining independents and others into a single category is appropriate for the analysis. Results are not substantively different from the regression analyses for Houston in Table 2. When using independents as the reference category, Democrats have statistically significant lower odds of climate change denial, while Republicans and others are not statistically significantly different. When others are the reference category, Democrats are marginally significant and have lower odds, and the Republicans and independents are not significant. Additionally, logistic regression results are not substantively different if the category of ‘other’ (about 15% of the sample) is included instead as missing.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the James T. Wagoner Foreign Study Scholarship at Rice University.

Notes on contributors

Kevin T. Smiley

Kevin T. Smiley is a PhD candidate in the Department of Sociology at Rice University. He is conducting research on Copenhagen and Houston as part of a larger project about urban theory and the two cities. He also researches environmental justice by examining the relationship between social capital and exposure to toxic air in the United States.