Ideologies, Conspiracy Beliefs, and the Chinese Public’s Politicized Attitudes to Climate Change

Yeheng Pan, Yu Xie, Hepeng Jia () and Xi Luo
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Yeheng Pan: School of Communication, Soochow University, Suzhou 215127, China
Yu Xie: School of Communication, Soochow University, Suzhou 215127, China
Hepeng Jia: School of Communication, Soochow University, Suzhou 215127, China
Xi Luo: School of Communication, Soochow University, Suzhou 215127, China

Sustainability, 2022, vol. 15, issue 1, 1-14

Abstract: While ideologies consistently influence public opinions on climate change in Western democracies, whether they affect the Chinese public’s climate attitudes is unknown. By applying a well-established measure of Chinese ideology, this study conducted a nationwide survey ( n = 1469) on the relationships between climate attitudes and ideologies, conspiracy beliefs, and science literacy. It is the first study to empirically investigate the impact of ideological tendencies, conspiracy beliefs, and conspiratorial thinking in shaping people’s climate attitudes. Among a series of novel findings, ideology was found to be a crucial factor in Chinese attitudes toward climate change, and economic ideology, in particular, was most strongly related to climate attitude. Moreover, somewhat counterintuitively, we found a positive link between respondents’ conspiratorial thinking and their climate awareness, as well as the failure of the moderation role of science literacy on ideological factors that influence climate attitude. All these findings suggest a mechanism behind the Chinese public’s perception of climate change, primarily working on the individual–state relationship.

Keywords: climate change; ideology; conspiracy beliefs; science literacy; conspiratorial thinking (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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