Understanding public risk perception related to possible consequences of climate change is of paramount importance. Not only does risk perception have an important role in shaping climate policy, it is also central in generating support for initiatives for adaptation and mitigation. In order to influence public knowledge and opinion, there is a need to know more about why people have diverging attitudes and perceptions related to climate change and its possible consequences. By using representative survey data for Norway and multivariate analysis, the authors of this article show that differences in attitudes and perceptions are partially explained by factors such as gender, educational background, and people's political preferences. However, an important factor explaining people's perception of climate change and its possible consequences is their direct personal experience of damage caused by climate-related events such as flooding or landslide. Furthermore, the results show that personal experience of damage has the largest impact on the respondents' belief that there will be more natural-resource hazards locally than in Norway or globally. The results also show that merely living in a more exposed area but not having a personal experience of damage does not affect the respondents' concern towards climate change.

The article presents a method for quantifying social vulnerability to natural hazards in Norwegian municipalities. In the analysis, a large number of variables that each measures a facet of a municipality's susceptibility to a potential hazard are used. Using factor analysis, the information in the variables is reduced to a smaller number of factors and socioeconomic and built environment vulnerability scores for each Norwegian municipality are calculated. The resulting scores in the Socioeconomic Vulnerability Index and Built Environment Index are mapped for each municipality. The results show that there are pronounced regional differences: municipalities with high socioeconomic vulnerability cluster in the northern half of Norway and parts of the south-east. The least vulnerable region is south-western Norway. Built environment vulnerability is highest in densely populated areas. By indicating municipalities with a high level of vulnerability, the method presented in this article is a useful tool in identifying regions which are likely to face significant challenges in coping with a large-scale event. The results can be used in, for example, planning mitigation efforts against extreme weather events, which are likely to be more frequent and severe in the future due to climate change.