An important question in the literature on climate change and sustainability is the relation between economic growth and greenhouse gas emissions. While the “green growth” paradigm dominates in the policy arena, a growing number of scholars in wealthy countries are questioning the feasibility of achieving required emissions reductions with continued economic growth. This paper explores the relationship between economic growth and carbon dioxide emissions over the period 1991–2008 with a balanced data set of 29 high-income countries. We present a variety of models, with particular attention to the difference between territorial emissions and consumption-based (or carbon footprint) emissions, which include the impact of international trade. The effect of economic growth is greater for consumption-based emissions than territorial emissions. We also find that over this period there is some evidence of decoupling between economic growth and territorial emissions, but no evidence of decoupling for consumption-based emissions.

This study contributes to the emerging literature on connections between climate change and economic inequality by investigating the relationship between domestic wealth inequality and consumption-based carbon emissions for 26 high-income countries from 2000 to 2010. Results of the two-way fixed effects longitudinal models indicate that the effect of wealth inequality, measured as the wealth share of the top decile, on per capita emissions in high-income countries is consistently positive and relatively stable over the time period. This finding is consistent with political economy theories arguing that the concentration of political and economic power that accompanies the concentration of wealth plays an important role in increasing environmental degradation and preventing proenvironmental actions.

Research on the extent and sources of international differences in climate change awareness and perception among general publics could improve understanding of the opportunities and challenges of formulating politically feasible and effective international climate policies. However, few studies have attempted to explain cross-national variation in climate change public opinion. This study builds on the relatively small body of existing research on this topic by investigating several cross-national predictors of public awareness and perception of climate change with ordinary least squares (OLS) and robust regression models using national-level data from the 2007–2008 and 2010 Gallup World Polls, which provide the largest available international datasets on climate change public opinion. The following results were most consistent across the surveys and models: 1) awareness of climate change is greater in countries that are wealthier and more highly educated, and is not influenced by political orientation or vulnerability; 2) perceived risk is greater in countries that are wealthier, left-leaning, and more vulnerable to climate change, and not affected by unemployment; 3) perceived human cause is greater in countries that are wealthier, left-leaning, more vulnerable, and more highly educated. The effects of education on perceived risk and unemployment rate on awareness and perceived human cause were not consistent.

This study presents an empirical cross-national analysis of the influence of fossil fuel (or carbon) dependence on climate change public opinion using ordinary least squares and robust regression modeling of aggregate, national-level data from Gallup World Poll surveys conducted in 2010. These provide measures of public awareness, perceived risk, and perceived human cause of climate change among general publics in over 100 countries. Three measures of fossil fuel dependence are examined: carbon dioxide emissions per capita, fossil fuel production dependence, and fossil fuel consumption dependence. The measure “carbon emissions per capita” is negatively associated with perceived risk and perceived human cause of climate change, but it is not associated with public awareness. However, when separately examining the production and consumption dimensions of fossil fuel dependence, the results indicate that greater dependence on fossil fuel production is significantly associated with lower public awareness, perceived risk, and perceived human cause of climate change; meanwhile, dependence on fossil fuel consumption has no significant effect on these three measures. These findings suggest that fossil fuel dependence, particularly dependence on the production of fossil fuels, shapes public understanding, skepticism, and risk perception of climate change and may do so mainly via economic interests and efforts to defend them.

Women express statistically significantly greater climate change concern than men in a number of countries, but this gender gap is not universal around the world. We use multilevel models with cross-level interactions to analyze how the individual-level effects of gender on climate change concern and perceived seriousness are influenced by three macro-level contextual factors: national affluence, climate risk, and gender equality. We find that gender differences in climate change views are statistically significant only in relatively affluent countries, the differences are larger at higher levels of affluence, and greater climate risk amplifies the difference in concern but not perceived seriousness. The effect of gender on climate change views does not statistically significantly vary by level of gender equality.