Extreme weather experiences and climate change beliefs in China: An econometric analysis

Jing Dai, Martin Kesternich, Andreas Löschel and Andreas Ziegler

Ecological Economics, 2015, vol. 116, issue C, 310-321

Abstract: This paper examines the extent and the determinants of global climate change beliefs. In contrast to former studies for the U.S. and other western countries, we focus on China due to its crucial role in international climate policy in conjunction with its vulnerability to global warming. The empirical analysis is based on unique data from a survey among more than 1000 adults in five Chinese cities. In line with former studies, our results reveal that the vast majority of almost 90% of the Chinese respondents believes in the existence of global warming. This seems to be a convenient and necessary basis for the support of costly public adaptation activities in China. Our econometric analysis reveals that already perceived experiences with extreme weather events (and particularly heatwaves) alone are strongly correlated with climate change beliefs and that physical or financial damages due to these events lead to even stronger relationships. Our estimation results additionally suggest females as well as people with a lower education, in medium ages, with higher household incomes, and from Chengdu or Shenyang to be more skeptical toward the existence of climate change.

Keywords: Global warming; Climate change beliefs; Extreme weather events; China; Econometric analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q54 Q58 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (32)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921800915002165
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ecolec:v:116:y:2015:i:c:p:310-321

DOI: 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2015.05.001

Access Statistics for this article

Ecological Economics is currently edited by C. J. Cleveland

More articles in Ecological Economics from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().