Examining Chinese and American Climate Change Views Using 2015, 2017 & 2020 Survey Data : Part 1-2

Abstract

With mounting scientific evidence regarding the realities of climate change (CC) including causes and consequences, the international/global importance of this issue cannot be overstated. Significant research has assessed public CC views in developed countries including the United States. However, much less is known about public CC views in developing countries, and in particular, in China. China and the US share a significant importance regarding international CC mitigation strategies as well as policy development because they are the world’s two largest greenhouse gas (GHG) polluters and also the two largest economies. Thus, a better understanding of Chinese and American views on CC is of great interest. Surveys were conducted in China and the US in 2015 (N=7,556), 2017 (N=7,415) and 2020 (N=2,600) to investigate a variety of issues regarding public views on CC in these two important countries. This presentation uses two posters to tell a comprehensive story of Chinese and American CC views using these data. The first part of this presentation constructs a CC Index based on a scoring system calculated from responses to eight survey questions yielding an easily understandable metric for comparing acceptance, knowledge, concern and obligation to act in the context of the scientific realities of CC. CC Index scores are compared across China and the US using aggregated data from 2015, 2017 and 2020 and an existing partisan political divide among American CC views is also highlighted. The second part of this presentation analyzes a variety of other data from survey questions regarding trust of science and media sources, support for the Paris Agreement, willingness-to-pay for CC policy action and exploring themes from responses to open-ended survey questions. Continued comparisons between Chinese and American CC views as well as the political divide on CC in the US are again presented using aggregated survey data from all three survey years.