A new study co-authored by IIASA researchers Jonas Peisker, Roman Hoffmann, and Raya Muttarak has found that extreme heatwaves are changing how Europeans feel about climate change and influencing their voting choices. The results highlight the demographic heterogeneity of the effects and could provide valuable insights for policymakers, communicators, and advocates aiming to enhance climate action legitimacy and engagement across diverse populations in the region.
In representative democracies, it is important that climate change policies are made through transparent processes and citizen representation, which in turn requires an understanding of how climate-related events influence public support for such policies. National legislatures are critical for progress in environmental protection because they play a key role in setting, implementing, and monitoring climate policies with taxation and government spending as powerful tools at their disposal.
The study, just published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS), is the first to provide large-scale evidence from 25 countries over a period of ten years on how personal experiences with extreme temperatures affect attitudes toward climate change and voting behavior in national elections. The research is based on individual-level data from the European Social Survey (2012–2022) and reveals that unusually high temperatures make people more likely to feel responsible for climate change, worry about its effects, and support Green parties as well as parties that intend to enter a coalition with them before the election.
"Our analysis shows that firsthand experiences of extreme temperatures can shift attitudes and voting behavior, particularly among groups that are generally less concerned about climate change. This suggests that climate change impacts are not only raising awareness but also shaping real-world political decisions," explains study author Jonas Peisker, a research scholar in the Migration and Sustainable Development Research Group of the IIASA Population and Just Societies Program.
The researchers found that while women and individuals with higher education show higher pro-environmental attitudes and likelihood of voting for green parties overall, less-educated men show the largest attitudinal and voting shifts following extreme weather. In addition, the results show that the influence of temperature anomalies differs depending on individuals' sector of work and the macro-economic characteristics of their region of residence. Workers in the service sector respond more strongly to weather events in their voting pattern than workers in the agricultural or manufacturing sector. The influence of heatwaves is also weaker in economically disadvantaged regions or those with more greenhouse gas-intensive economies, highlighting tensions between economic interests and support for climate action.
"Climate policy needs to support regions that are relatively disadvantaged in the transition away from fossil fuels, in other words, regions with a large share of greenhouse gas intensive industry and a low income level. Residents of such regions already have a lower probability of being environmentally concerned and of voting for green coalitions. Exacerbating economic inequalities across and within regions in the process of decarbonization is likely to further alienate people from a pro-environmental agenda," notes study author Roman Hoffmann, who leads the Migration and Sustainable Development Research Group in the IIASA Population and Just Societies Program.
While estimates of average effects of extreme weather events are important to better understand how public support for environmental policy could generally be affected by climate change, the authors emphasize that the differences between demographic groups and regions matter. To build support for climate policies, communication strategies should therefore highlight the real-world impacts of climate change, focusing on groups that are less engaged.
However, the study also underscores the need for targeted economic policies to support disadvantaged regions during the transition to a low-carbon economy. Without this support, economic inequalities may undermine public backing for climate policies.
Reference
Bassetto, J., Hoffmann, R., Muttarak, R., Peisker, J., & Stanig, P. (2026). Heterogeneous impacts of temperature extremes on climate attitudes and Green voting. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS)
About IIASA:
The International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) is an international scientific institute that conducts research into the critical issues of global environmental, economic, technological, and social change that we face in the twenty-first century. Our findings provide valuable options to policymakers to shape the future of our changing world. IIASA is independent and funded by prestigious research funding agencies in Africa, the Americas, Asia, and Europe. www.iiasa.ac.at
