Extreme weather experience and climate change risk perceptions: The roles of partisanship and climate change cause attribution

Abstract

Climate change risk perceptions are crucial in influencing individuals' behavioral changes and shaping policy preferences for climate change mitigation. Experience of recent extreme weather events may enhance people's awareness of climate change and thus alter their attitudes toward climate change. This study examines the correlations between extreme weather experience and climate change risk perceptions using Australia's most recent representative national survey data (2020 Australian Survey of Social Attitudes). The results demonstrate that the positive effect of extreme weather experience on climate change risk perceptions, both to the World and to Australia, became nonsignificant when all variables were controlled. Notably, extreme weather experiences amplified the perceptions of climate change risk among individuals without party affiliations, but they did not affect those with solid party affiliations, neither with the National-Liberal Coalition nor Labor or the Greens. Furthermore, the impact of extreme weather experiences on climate change risk perceptions is not direct but primarily indirect through individuals' cause attribution of climate change. This paper provides valuable insights into the linkage mechanism between extreme weather experience and climate change risk perceptions.