Support for Climate Change Adaptation Over Climate Change Mitigation Depends on Political Party Identification and How Adaptation Is Framed (WP-25-19)
Robin Bayes, Daniel Molden, and James Druckman
Adaptation to the negative consequences of climate change is of increasing relevance. Yet, there have been relatively few studies of how opinions about adaptation differ from opinions about climate change mitigation among climate skeptics. The present preregistered study compares Republicans’ support for adaptation and mitigation across their beliefs, policy attitudes, and behavioral intentions. It also tests how framing adaptation as a response to extreme weather versus a response to climate change impacts Republicans’ opinions. The researchers find that Republicans express more support for adaptation than mitigation, particularly when adaptation is framed as a response to extreme weather, across all outcomes except behavior. In a separate data collection, they show that the framing effect does not manifest for Democrats, who in fact exhibit stronger support for mitigation than adaptation. They conclude that focusing on adaptation as a response to extreme weather could help build an effective climate change coalition inclusive of Republicans. However, doing so introduces a tension in that it could minimize attention to addressing longer term climate change consequences that align with Democrats’ priorities.