2025/10/07 by Fabian Dablander · 1 voice
Social Sciences · Environmental Science · #Climate Change Communication and Perception #Risk Perception and Management #Environmental Education and Sustainability
paper · doi:10.1088/1748-9326/ae0ae9
openalex publication_date 2025/10/07 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/22
Abstract Climate change is intensifying extreme weather events worldwide. Using nationally representative survey data from 142 countries ( <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" overflow="scroll"> <mml:mrow> <mml:mi>N</mml:mi> <mml:mo>=</mml:mo> <mml:mn>128</mml:mn> <mml:mstyle scriptlevel="0"/> <mml:mn>093</mml:mn> </mml:mrow> </mml:math> ), I found that people who have experienced a climate-related hazard are more likely to consider climate change a very serious threat than people who have not experienced any hazard within the same country. These effects are consistent across eleven hazard types, with the effect of experiencing a heatwave being comparable in magnitude to that of having a university education. The increase in risk perception among those who have experienced a climate-related hazard does not appear to be clearly amplified or attenuated by a person’s resilience, which is calculated by combining individual, household, community, and societal factors. Large differences in the effects are observed across countries for some hazards (e.g. droughts, heatwaves, and floods), whereas small differences are observed for others (e.g. hurricanes, landslides, and wildfires). At the country level, there does not appear to be an association between the proportion of people exposed to climate-related hazards and the proportion of people who perceive climate change as a threat. These results may help us anticipate public concern in a warming world and suggest promising avenues for future research.