Climate Change Beliefs and their Correlates in Latin America

Abstract The ability of climate skeptics to block climate action depends on the set of beliefs about climate change prevailing among the general public. In the Global North, research has shown that people’s beliefs about the existence, the causes, and the consequences of climate change are primarily associated with political orientation and ideology. However, little is known about climate change beliefs in the wider world and its associated factors. To address this gap, we provide a large-scale, systematic overview of climate change beliefs in Latin America and its correlates. This study finds limited room for skepticism over the existence of climate change and its anthropogenic origins, but identifies a high minority of skeptics around the severity of its consequences. Furthermore, the study also finds that skepticism in this region is correlated with psychological rather than political factors. Specifically, the study reveals that individualistic worldviews are powerfully associated with disbelief in the severe consequences of climate change, a worrying finding in a region featuring relatively low levels of social trust. By mapping climate change beliefs and their correlates in Latin America, the study offers a starting point for a more sophisticated debate on how to tackle the constraining effects of climate skepticism in the Global South.