The Distribution of Climate Change Public Opinion in Canada

While climate scientists have developed high resolution data sets on the distribution of climate risks, we still lack comparable data on the local distribution of public climate change opinions. This paper provides the first effort to estimate local climate and energy opinion variability outside the...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:PloS one 2016-08, Vol.11 (8), p.e0159774-e0159774
Main Authors: Mildenberger, Matto, Howe, Peter, Lachapelle, Erick, Stokes, Leah, Marlon, Jennifer, Gravelle, Timothy
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Biology and Life Sciences
Canada
Canadians
Carbon
Climate Change
Climate policy
Climatic analysis
Data
Decision analysis
Decision making
Distribution
Earth Sciences
Emissions
Emissions trading
Energy policy
Environmental economics
Environmental policy
Environmental risk
Environmental tax
Gases
Global temperature changes
Humans
International economic relations
Local climates
Material requirements planning
Natural gas
Oil sands
People and places
Policy analysis
Political majority
Political science
Politics
Public Opinion
Public opinion surveys
Public Policy
Regression Analysis
Research and Analysis Methods
Rural areas
Rural Population
Social Sciences
Studies
Tax reform
Taxation
Trade policy
United States
Urban Population
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Summary:While climate scientists have developed high resolution data sets on the distribution of climate risks, we still lack comparable data on the local distribution of public climate change opinions. This paper provides the first effort to estimate local climate and energy opinion variability outside the United States. Using a multi-level regression and post-stratification (MRP) approach, we estimate opinion in federal electoral districts and provinces. We demonstrate that a majority of the Canadian public consistently believes that climate change is happening. Belief in climate change's causes varies geographically, with more people attributing it to human activity in urban as opposed to rural areas. Most prominently, we find majority support for carbon cap and trade policy in every province and district. By contrast, support for carbon taxation is more heterogeneous. Compared to the distribution of US climate opinions, Canadians believe climate change is happening at higher levels. This new opinion data set will support climate policy analysis and climate policy decision making at national, provincial and local levels.
ISSN:1932-6203
1932-6203
DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0159774