Europeans’ climate consciousness: Increased yet more politicised

Kenny, John and Fisher, Stephen D. (2025) Europeans’ climate consciousness: Increased yet more politicised. Environmental Politics. ISSN 0964-4016

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Abstract

As climate change became more important to voters and political parties in the late 2010s in Europe, this paper asks whether aspects of public opinion on the issue also became more politicised, in the sense of being more closely linked to either party-family vote choice or left–right identity. We consider change from Wave 8 (2016–17) to Wave 10 (2020–22) of the European Social Survey (ESS). Climate consciousness increased overall, especially in Central and Eastern Europe. Politicisation of climate change increased mostly in Western Europe, where climate consciousness increased more on the left, and for left-wing party voters, than on the right. The Populist-Right party family, as a group, was distinctive in the relative stability of climate consciousness among their voters. Our results show increased politicisation of climate change attitudes within Western European countries, but also convergence between polities of the East and West at higher levels of climate consciousness.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	Data availability statement: The data analysed in this paper is accessible through the European Social Survey DataPortal: https://www.europeansocialsurvey.org/data-portal
Uncontrolled Keywords:	climate change,europe,party families,politicisation,public opinion,environmental science (miscellaneous),sociology and political science,sdg 13 - climate action ,/dk/atira/pure/subjectarea/asjc/2300/2301
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Science > School of Environmental Sciences University of East Anglia Research Groups/Centres > Theme - ClimateUEA
UEA Research Groups:	University of East Anglia Schools > Faculty of Science > Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research Faculty of Science > Research Centres > Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research
Related URLs:	http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?...
Depositing User:	LivePure Connector
Date Deposited:	22 Dec 2025 13:30
Last Modified:	29 Dec 2025 17:30
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/101477
DOI:	10.1080/09644016.2025.2597649

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