Local Public Opinion and Municipal Action Towards Climate Change Mitigation in the United States

• In Event: 2251 - Section on Environmental Sociology Roundtables (1 hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: 6. Environmental Attitudes and Perceptions 2

Abstract

In this project, we explore the relationship between local public opinion on climate change and municipal efforts to mitigate the effects of this threat. American cities have emerged as leaders in climate change mitigation. Although existing research has identified a number of factors that predict whether a city will take action towards mitigation, this work has largely failed to account for the role of public opinion in sparking cities to address climate change. However, recent analyses highlight widespread subnational variation in perspectives on climate change within the United States. This variation in public views on climate change across localities has the potential to help explain why some cities have become such strong champions of mitigation efforts.

We examine three measures of public opinion about climate change at the county-level: belief that global warming is happening, belief that it is caused by human activities, and belief that it will harm people in the United States. We analyze the association between these beliefs and three distinct measures of municipal climate action in 1,627 U.S. cities. We then assess whether this association persists after accounting for other potential predictors of climate action. Preliminary results provide evidence of a positive association between local public opinion on climate change and a measure of municipal support for climate change mitigation.

Authors

• Benjamin Sosnaud, Trinity University

• Pouya Mohammadi, Duke University