Conference Agenda

Climate change is a large-scale and long-run collective-action problem, but little is known about how the public perceives the long-run future that climate action is meant to shape. We study these beliefs using a large-scale survey experiment with more than 10,000 U.S. adults. We document sharply divergent beliefs about the long-run future: while some respondents deny that climate change is occurring, many others expect severe climate damages and broader socioeconomic decline. These pessimistic beliefs are associated with greater climate concern, more negative emotions, perceived urgency, climate-motivated private actions, protest approval, and support for more stringent climate policy, including fossil-fuel bans. We also show that most Americans hold beliefs that differ from key aspects of what climate science, as summarized by the IPCC, projects: while respondents understand that physical climate impacts are projected to worsen, a majority also believes that, contrary to the projections underlying the IPCC scenarios, either global income or population, or both, are projected to stagnate or decline. Experimentally providing information about worsening climate damages increases perceived severity and support for stringent climate policy. Adding IPCC-consistent information that the same scenario also projects continued growth in global average income per capita and population reduces expectations of aggregate decline and collapse and preserves the sense that future action to address climate change will be meaningful, but also dampens the mobilizing effect of climate-damage information.