Extreme weather event attribution predicts climate policy support across the world
- Viktoria Cologna
- Simona Meiler
- Chahan M. Kropf
- Samuel Lüthi
- Niels G. Mede
- David N. Bresch
- Oscar Lecuona
- Sebastian Berger
- John Besley
- Cameron Brick
- Marina Joubert
- Edward W. Maibach
- Sabina Mihelj
- Naomi Oreskes
- Mike S. Schäfer
- Sander van der Linden
- Nor Izzatina Abdul Aziz
- Suleiman Abdulsalam
- Nurulaini Abu Shamsi
- Balazs Aczel
- Indro Adinugroho
- Eleonora Alabrese
- Alaa Aldoh
- Mark Alfano
- Innocent Mbulli Ali
- Mohammed Alsobay
- R. Michael Alvarez
- Tabitha Amollo
- Patrick Ansah
- Denisa Apriliawati
- Flavio Azevedo
- Ani Bajrami
- Ronita Bardhan
- Keagile Bati
- Eri Bertsou
- Rahul Bhui
- Olga Białobrzeska
- Michal Bilewicz
- Ayoub Bouguettaya
- Katherine Breeden
- Amélie Bret
- Ondrej Buchel
- Pablo Cabrera Alvarez
- Federica Cagnoli
- André Calero Valdez
- Timothy Callaghan
- Rizza Kaye Cases
- Sami Çoksan
- Gabriela Czarnek
- Ramit Debnath
2025-07-01
Extreme weather events are becoming more frequent and intense due to climate change. Yet, little is known about the relationship between exposure to extreme events, subjective attribution of these events to climate change, and climate policy support, especially in the Global South. Combining large-scale natural and social science data from 68 countries ( N = 71,922), we develop a measure of exposed population to extreme weather events and investigate whether exposure to extreme weather and subjective attribution of extreme weather to climate change predict climate policy support. We find that most people support climate policies and link extreme weather events to climate change. Subjective attribution of extreme weather was positively associated with policy support for five widely discussed climate policies. However, exposure to most types of extreme weather event did not predict policy support. Overall, these results suggest that subjective attribution could facilitate climate policy support.