Might I have to move due to climate change? The role of exposure to risk and political partisanship in anticipation of future relocation

Abstract

Recently, the body of research that assesses belief in climate change has grown, as has the number of studies appraising how experience with the impacts of climate change might affect public opinion. However, less research has addressed the question of whether/how people believe climate change will manifest itself in their own lives, or how it might affect behavioral responses more generally. Using two rounds of national survey data from 2016 and 2020, we examine the associations between climate risk, political party affiliation, and one potential planned adaptation behavior, relocation. Our results suggest that both exposure to risk and political identification help shape respondents’ beliefs. Several measures of risk are associated with respondents’ reports that weather/climate might cause them to move in the future and there is evidence to suggest that their awareness of risk may have increased between the two surveys. Regarding political affiliation, we find in one set of analyses that Republicans interviewed in 2020 were less likely than other political subgroups, including Republicans interviewed in 2016, to say weather/climate could have a potentially strong influence on future relocation decisions. We also find strong effects of age in one set of analyses, where younger respondents were much more likely than those at middle or older ages to report that weather/climate could exert a strong to moderate influence on a future move.