Responses to Climate Change

Abstract

This chapter provides a comprehensive overview of climate change policies and actions around the world. It documents the differences in the stringency of climate change policies across different regions of the world and looks at the populations within countries to provide an assessment of their values and perceptions of the significance of climate change. This chapter demonstrates that economic development is associated with an increased commitment to address climate change both at the country level and at the individual level. Furthermore, the results suggest that more stringent climate change mitigation policies at the macro level are often consistent with proenvironmental individual preferences at the micro level. However, the proenvironmental attitudes of individuals do not always translate into stringent environmental policies. A case study of two countries, Sweden and Turkey, is used to highlight the structural and institutional influences on environmental actions and policies. The evidence suggests that there is convergence between individual preferences for environmental concern and climate policy action in Sweden due to high levels of trust and social capital formation. In contrast, Turkish citizens are unable to engage in collective environmental actions because of high levels of distrust. Therefore, there are multiple factors to consider regarding data within and across countries and there is likely a diversity of subnational regions in terms of political institutions, democracy, social capital, public policies, and environmentalism.