Data from 88 countries reveal international predictors of climate activism

Abstract

Activism plays a critical role in drawing attention to climate change and putting pressure on governments and other institutions to engage in mitigation efforts. However, little is known about the extent to which – and why – willingness to engage in climate activism varies across different nations. To help answer these questions, we drew on an 88-nation dataset that measured people's willingness to engage in climate change activism. Multi-level regressions revealed that citizens in countries with lower GDP per capita and lower rankings on a Democracy index are more likely to engage in climate activism. In contrast, there was no evidence that CO₂ emissions per capita played a unique predictive role (over and above wealth and democracy) and there was no relationship between climate activism and climate vulnerability as measured by the Climate Risk Index. Overall, our results highlight the powerful (but still under-discussed) voices of traditionally marginalised populations in catalysing change.