Title: Climate risk perceptions and policy ambition

Authors: Olivia Jensen

Addresses: Institute for the Public Understanding of Risk, National University of Singapore, Innovation 4.0 #02-07, 3 Research Link, 117602, Singapore

Abstract: This article investigates the factors which influence national climate change policy ambition, as they are reflected in states' commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in United National Climate Change (UNFCCC) negotiations. The paper specifically investigates the relationship between policy ambition and public perceptions of the threat posed by climate change employing a 140-country nationally representative dataset of risk perceptions conducted in 2019. The analysis shows that while public opinion does correlate overall with policy ambition across countries, in a sizable minority of countries, public threat perceptions are high while policy ambition is low. In these countries, climate change policy is found to be malign in two senses: first, those policies are not consistent with achieving the global public good of climate change control; and second, in the sense that policies are not aligned with the level of concern of citizens about this issue.

Keywords: climate policy; risk perceptions; policy-making; malign policy; LRF World Risk Poll.

DOI: 10.1504/IJPP.2022.124777

International Journal of Public Policy, 2022 Vol.16 No.2/3/4, pp.151 - 173

Received: 24 Sep 2021
Received in revised form: 11 Feb 2022
Accepted: 20 Apr 2022
Published online: 08 Aug 2022 *