Climate Change Worry before and during the Russo-Ukrainian War

Beliefs about climate change shape individuals’ behavior and influence support for policies addressing climate change. Climate fear is particularly a strong predictor of willingness to take action against climate change. However, the Russian-Ukrainian war, which erupted in February 2021, resulted in a security crisis in Europe that, based on the ‘finite pool of worry’ concept, could have reduced individuals’ fear of climate change or at least diverted attention from the issue. In this study, we examine changes in climate fear before and under the Russian-Ukrainian war across the 27 member states of the European Union. Our data come from a large-scale nationally represeantative European survey (N=27,000). The seventh wave of this research series was conducted just before the outbreak of the Russian-Ukrainian war, in January 2022, while the subsequent wave was conducted in the fall of 2022. This quasi-natural experiment provided an opportunity to track changes in attitudes. The results show that, contrary to the assumptions derived from the ‘finite pool of worry’ theory, climate fear increased in 19 out of 27 countries, remained unchanged in eight countries, and did not decrease in any country. Regression models also confirm a general rise in climate fear during the first six months of the war, with a slightly smaller increase in countries closer to the conflict zone, likely because these areas face a higher risk from the war. This suggests that, similar to the Covid-19 crisis, the Russian-Ukrainian war crisis does not significantly reduce support for climate protection measures, thus justifying the continued implementation of such policies.