Climate change concern varies widely across countries. In 2019, 80% of Greeks were at least somewhat worried about climate change, compared to 20% of Egyptians. We argue that variation in climate change concern is partially caused by differences in democracy. Civil liberties protect climate communicators from state repression, censorship, and violence. We offer empirical evidence for the causal effect of democracy on climate change concern using data from 611,909 individuals from 118 countries collected between 2007 and 2019. Exploiting variation in civil liberties across countries and time, we find one unit change in the 7-point civil liberty index to influence climate change concern by 2.3 [95% CI: ±1] percentage points. The effect is much stronger in wealthy countries and less educated cohorts. We also present evidence for our causal pathway using qualitative interviews and by modeling the association between democracy, climate protest, media coverage, and climate concern with simultaneous equations.
If you will be attending on-site, please register using the form on the sidebar.
If you will be attending online, please send an email to kwoyila@hertie-school.org.
The Political Economy Lunch Seminar offers an informal setting for Hertie School scholars and external speakers to present works in progress. Meetings are catered and last for only an hour. Seminars during the Fall semester 2021 will take place in a hybrid format - i.e. on-site and streamed (pandemic situation permitting). Please send an email to Ayamba Kwoyila (kwoyila@hertie-school.org) or use the registration form on the individual event pages to receive a link; those who are currently on the distribution list will receive the link automatically by email. There will be six sessions in the Fall 2021. The upcoming events in the series are listed on this page and in the main events calendar. To explore past events click on the Past events button.
Speakers
Sebastian Levi, Postdoctoral Researcher
