When the Smoke Will Not Clear: Examining the Longitudinal Effects of Political Despair on Well-Being and Collective Climate Action

Abstract

Averting the existential risks that climate change poses requires sustained collective action, yet little is known about the factors that maintain versus undermine such commitment over time. This study tests whether participants' (N = 871) experience of political despair about climate change undermines long-term collective climate action engagement both directly and indirectly because it diminishes well-being (operationalised as stress, resilience and vitality). We examined these processes in the context of the 2019–2020 Australian black summer bushfires, measured across three time points (February, May and August 2020). Using a Random Intercept-Cross Lagged Panel Model, we found significant trait-level associations between political despair and well-being, as well as political despair and collective climate actions. However, at the within-person level, there was little support that political despair diminishes well-being or intention to engage in collective climate action over time. Rather, results suggested the reverse: that feelings of political despair are outcomes of collective climate action and poor well-being. This research highlights the importance of further examining the potentially dynamic and bidirectional links between emotions, action and well-being.