This presentation was presented by Elena Paltseva during the annual SITE Development Day 2021 conference at Stockholm School of Economics via Zoom. Disclaimer: SITE has the permission from Elena Paltseva and Chloé Le Coq to upload this presentation slide.

1. Green Concerns and
Salience of
Environmental Issues
in Eastern Europe
Chloe Le Coq and Elena
Paltseva
SITE Development Day 2021

2. Climate change: do individual actions matter?
• Climate change - one of the main concerns globally
• Common view that large businesses, organizations, and governments need to act to
combat climate change
• Somewhat less agreement on the effects of individual actions (e.g., because of the
scale of the effect is considered to be small)
• However: 72% percent of global greenhouse gas emissions come from household or
“lifestyle” consumption such as mobility, diet, housing, etc. (Hertwich and Peters
2009).
• Recent research: changes in individual behavior are also of utmost importance
• Both via direct effect on environment and via effect on societal norms and policies
• Mobilizing already known changes in consumer behavior may bring 25% reduction on carbon
footprint in the EU (Moran et al., 2020)

3. Individuals: actions vs. concerns
• Awareness of the threat of anthropogenic climate change is one of the key factors in
changing the individual behavior (Kim and Hall, 2019, Zainudina et al., 2019, etc.)
• However, public ignorance about
climate change’s impacts remains
high across the world.
• Including in the regions that are large
contributors to global warming, see
PEW Center graph
• This lack of awareness is not well-
understood (Farrell et al., 2019).

4. This presentation: climate risk opinion in Eastern Europe
• Does climate change risk perception differ btw Western Europe, Eastern European states that are part of the
EU, and non-EU Eastern European countries?
• What are the factors that can be driving this difference?
• Based on data from Lloyd's Register Foundation World Risk Poll 2020
• Main message:
• Non-EU Eastern European states are least concerned about the climate change
• The result stands after controlling for known determinants of climate change opinion
• (Part of) this difference is due to low salience and informativeness of environmental issues in public discussion
in this region
• To support our point, we study the impact of extreme weather events experience on climate change opinion
• Idea: individuals that are more aware of climate change risks are less likely to adjust their climate risks
perception following personal experience of (climate-related) extreme weather events
• Quality of public message about climate change issues (proxied by media quality and climate-related
legislative effort) affects individuals’ awareness of climate change

5. Green concerns across Europe
• Non-EU part of Eastern Europe is LEAST concerned
• Followed by Eastern part of the EU, and then by Western Europe
-
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1.0
AT
BE
CY
DK
FI
FR
DE
GR
IE
IT
LU
MT
NL
NO
PT
ES
SE
CH
UK
BG
HR
EE
HU
LV
LT
PO
RO
SI
SK
AL
AM
AZ
BY
GE
MD
ME
RU
RS
UA
Share of people who see climate change as a threat
Very serious threat Somewhat serious threat
Region average, very serious threat Region average, very or somewhat serious threat
Western Europe Eastern Europe,
EU
Eastern Europe,
non-EU

6. Potential drivers of low concerns?
• Lower climate concerns in EU-part of the Eastern bloc have been documented
before (e.g., Lorenzoni and Pidgeon 2006, Poortinga et al., 2018, or Marquart-Pyatt
et al., 2019)
• high reliance of on coal and other fossil fuels,
• low-income levels and other immediate problems, which lower the priority of climate problems
• Also, climate beliefs are linked to socio-economic characteristics of respondents, such as level of
education, income, or gender, which may be different across the considered regions.
• We control
• for respondents’ individual characteristics,
• country-level GDP per capita, oil, gas, and coal dependence of the economies, and exposure to
emissions
• Regional differences persist

7. Regional differences (with controls) persist
Predicted probability to answer (“Climate change is a very
serious threat”
Western Europe EU Eastern Europe Non-EU Eastern Europe

8. Is personal experience of extreme weather events
one of the determinants?
• Yes!
• Extreme weather events make
individuals more concerns
about climate change (relative
to their unaffected
compatriots!)
• MOST impact in non-EU part
of Eastern Europé!
Marginal effect of experience across regions
Western
Europe
EU Eastern
Europe
Non-EU Eastern
Europe

9. How is experience of extreme weather events
related to quality of media?
• More independent media – less
“learning” about the risks of
climate change from personal
experience of extreme weather
events!
• Our interpretation: independent
media increases awareness of
climate change risks
Marginal effect of experience across media quality
Independent media index, 0 is least independent, 4 is most
independent

10. How is experience of extreme weather events
related to climate-related legislative effort?
• More climate laws leads to less
“learning” about the risks of
climate change from personal
experience of extreme weather
events!
• Same logic: more laws may be
associated with more awareness
• Causal direction could go both
ways
Marginal effect of experience by legislative effort
Cumulative number of climate-related laws, data from
Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change

11. Conclusions
• Climate concern in non-EU part of Eastern Europe is lagging behind the rest of Europe
• Personal experience raises awareness of climate change risks, especially in the non-
EU part of Eastern Europe.
• It is likely to be explained by relatively low level of information and quality of public
discourse about climate change in the region.
POLICY RECOMMENDATION: We need significant effort of both government and civil
society to provide adequate information and mobilize the population in our common
fight against climate change.