Why the poor do not act against climate change: A class victimization narrative

There are many academic works dealing with public opinion about climate change. Most of them have previously shown that the vast majority of Europeans are concerned about it, and are afraid of a catastrophe to come; and yet they also emphasized that few ordinary citizens are willing to actually act. Why this gap between rhetoric and practice?

One answer lies in climate skepticism, a phenomenon recently highlighted by some sociologists; such an explanation is not enough to justify the wide gap between opinion and behavior. So we propose an alternative hypothesis: a large part of Europeans, especially among the lower classes, tell a story midway between that of the official IPCC scientists and the States on the one hand, and that of climate skeptics on the other hand. This account agrees with the concerns about climate and also predicts the final disaster, but it assigns responsibility to the State and big business, considering the sacrifices required from people as unfair. It claims a social class issue, which is not only a question of global warming, but of environmental justice, and in which the poor play the role of victim.

We propose to measure the importance of this story among European citizens. To do this, we will rely on Eurobarometer surveys of March 2008, and June 2011.