Abstract
Everyday public denial of anthropogenically caused climate change (ACC) has complex antecedents and exists on both individual and institutional levels. Earlier research has linked ACC denial to opposition to formal science and elites, perceived threats to the industrialist capitalist order and existing system properties. Research also suggest that trust in public organizations is a key factor in determining support or opposition to climate change policies. In this paper, we explore the possibility that right wing populism and anti-elitist attitudes fuel both ACC denial and low trust in environmental institutions. We surveyed a representative sample of Norwegians (N = 3032) to measure ACC denial, how denial is linked to socio-demographic characteristics, trust in environmental institutions, attitudes toward elites and immigration, as well as environmental attitude orientations. Results show that lack of trust in environmental institutions is strongly associated with ACC denial, and furthermore that the degree of trust—or lack thereof—is partly a function of anti-elitist attitudes, opposition to migration and views of nature.
Highlights
Climate change (CC) has emerged as the foremost global environmental issue during the last three decades
We suggest in the context of CC that as an opposition movement, populism and extreme right wing groups express what they perceive as relative deprivation of societal goods compared to other groups, since they perceive that their way of life may be threatened if liberal forces succeed with their CC policies, arguing that it is not economic hardship or deprivation as such but the internalized fear of losing one’s social status that makes people more prone to support populist ideas and parties (Lübke, 2021)
In a previous study of CC denial among Norwegians based on date from 2012, we found that 36 percent disagreed that CC is caused by humans, but a mere 1.1 per cent of the population totally rejected the existence of CC as a phenomenon (Krange et al, 2018)
Summary
Climate change (CC) has emerged as the foremost global environmental issue during the last three decades. The climate crisis and the nature crisis (Ruckelhaus et al, 2020) confront humanity with formidable challenges in terms of societal organization and political leadership. Even after the last IPPC report (Sixth Assessment Report (ipcc.ch)) several political agents still refuse to recognize human activities as the most important driver of global warming, an undisputable fact in the IPCC reports. On the other Norway’s economy is strongly oil and gas-dependent, an industry which forms the economic basis for one of the world’s most generous public welfare systems. Many factors influence public opinions about and trust in science: Affluent CO2-dependent lifestyles, strong scientific evidence for anthropogenically induced climate change (ACC) and global warming, a political elite surpassing the antagonism between oil and gas extraction and CCA and huge revenues from oil and affiliated industries (Listhaug, 2005; Thurber et al, 2011)
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