Natural Disasters and the Tradeoffs of Climate Change Attribution

• In Event: Living with the Consequences of Climate Change

Abstract

Climate change is no longer a future threat but a present reality. Historic wildfires, unprecedented hurricanes, even increased migration are all visible consequences of our warming planet. Nevertheless, politicians and pundits are often reluctant to link natural disasters to human-caused climate change. What explains such reticence? We conduct an original survey experiment on a representative sample of American adults in order to investigate how linking natural disasters at home and abroad to climate change shapes respondents’ views about who bears responsibility for taking action. Specifically, we evaluate whether attributing these disasters to climate change could make certain respondents less supportive of international and government-led remedial action and also less willing to donate their own money to victims. Our findings shed new light on the potential tradeoffs of conveying the link between climate change and its devastating consequences.

Authors

• Rebecca Perlman, Princeton University

• Zuhad Hai