Raising awareness of climate change causes? Cross-national evidence for the normalization of societal risk perception of climate change

摘要

Highlights?Countries’ CO2emissions are negatively related to climate change risk perception.?This normalization effect is mediated by high awareness of climate change causes.?Information-deficit approaches do not account for risk normalization.?Environmental concern moderates the risk normalization effect.AbstractIncreasing the awareness of climate change causes is often considered the key to public support of mitigation and adaptation policies. However, higher awareness might not always relate to higher risk perceptions. Previous research suggests that a process of risk normalization might occur, wherein individuals more exposed and aware of hazards minimize their risk perception to psychologically cope with hazards. This study elaborates on and expands this research, by conducting multilevel analyses on more recent data from the International Social Survey Programme fro