Public Perceptions of Climate Change Risk: A Global Study

Event Type: Seminar

Date: 5 October 2021, 13:00 to 15:00

About the Event

Public perceptions of climate risk are critical to climate action as they shape individual and collective behaviour and influence the decisions of governments and firms. This seminar presents the findings of a study of public risk perceptions at the global level employing a survey of more than 140,000 people with nationally representative samples from 140 countries conducted in 2019. The study builds upon previous work in its geographical breadth and the depth of individual-level analysis. We find that those who are worried about extreme weather and those who believe that they are likely to experience harm from extreme weather perceive significantly higher climate risks. Controlling for age, education, internet use and predisposition to worry about risks, women perceive higher climate risks than men, a finding consistent with the greater burden of climate change impacts likely to fall on women. Two ongoing studies extend this work to examine the link between public perceptions and national policy ambition and the gap between public and expert perceptions of climate risk.

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The recorded version of this live webinar is now available for viewing. 

About the Speaker

Olivia Jensen

Olivia Jensen is Lead Scientist at the LRF Institute for the Public Understanding of Risk at NUS, heading the Environment and Climate research pillar. She is an economist and public policy scholar specialising in water and environmental risk and governance. Her research is concerned with the spectrum of environmental risks and the design and evaluation of policy interventions to strengthen resilience with a focus on cities in Asia. At IPUR, she partners with government agencies and international organisations to develop and deliver policy-relevant research. Prior to joining IPUR, she was based at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy of NUS as Senior Research Fellow. Olivia holds a PhD and MSc in Development from the London School of Economics and a BA in Politics, Philosophy and Economics from the University of Oxford.