Climate Change Beliefs and Political Ideologies

Beliefs about climate change are deeply entwined with political ideologies, shaping how individuals interpret scientific evidence, accept policy measures and engage in collective action. Those on the political left tend to express higher levels of concern about anthropogenic warming, support for mitigation policies and trust in scientific institutions. Conversely, right-leaning ideologies often correlate with scepticism or outright denial, underpinned by social dominance orientations, authoritarian tendencies and a resistance to policies perceived as threatening economic freedom. Moral foundations such as care and fairness boost pro-environmental attitudes among liberals, while loyalty, authority and purity may reinforce climate scepticism in more conservative circles. Generational shifts, media practices and cultural contexts further mediate ideological divides, producing complex global patterns of belief and disbelief. Understanding these dynamics is crucial for designing communication strategies, fostering cross-partisan consensus and enabling equitable climate action worldwide.

Research from Nature Portfolio

Longitudinal analysis using a ten-year panel of respondents revealed that belief in the reality and human causation of climate change has risen uniformly across all age cohorts, dispelling notions of a purely youth-driven surge in awareness. Although older generations began at lower levels of acceptance, the uniform rate of increase signals potential for intergenerational solidarity in climate action. Another study examined how right-wing populist attitudes and anti-elitist sentiment erode trust in environmental bodies and fuel denial of anthropogenic warming. Findings indicate that distrust in public institutions, allied with opposition to immigration and perceived threats to established systems, significantly amplifies climate scepticism among populist supporters.

Climate Change Beliefs and Political Ideologies publication trend

The graph below shows the total number of articles in climate change beliefs and political ideologies across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).

Technical terms

Social Dominance Orientation (SDO): a scale measuring the preference for hierarchy and dominance of one social group over others, linked to lower environmental concern.

Right-Wing Authoritarianism (RWA): an ideological construct denoting submission to authority, adherence to social conventions and aggression toward outgroups, associated with sceptical climate attitudes.

Climate Change Denial: the outright rejection or minimisation of the scientific consensus on anthropogenic global warming.

Moral Foundations: basic ethical intuitions (such as care, fairness, loyalty, authority and purity) that influence attitudes towards collective issues like climate change.

Temporal Framing: a communication strategy that emphasises past, present or future environmental changes to affect pro-environmental attitudes.

References

1. Which Moral Foundations Predict Willingness to Make Lifestyle Changes to Avert Climate Change in the USA?. PLOS ONE (2016).
2. The Moral Foundations of Environmentalism: Care- and Fairness-Based Morality Interact With Political Liberalism to Predict Pro-Environmental Actions. Social Psychological Bulletin (2019).
3. Ten-year panel data confirm generation gap but climate beliefs increase at similar rates across ages. Nature Communications (2021).
4. “Don’t confuse me with facts”—how right wing populism affects trust in agencies advocating anthropogenic climate change as a reality. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications (2021).
5. Personality traits and climate change denial, concern, and proactivity: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Journal of Environmental Psychology (2024).
6. Impact of ideology on individuals’ attitudes to a climate-motivated tax on food. Climate Policy (2024).
7. Correlates of belief in climate change: Demographics, ideology and belief systems. Acta Psychologica (2022).