Conceptualizing Affective Climate Polarization

Abstract

Existing research demonstrates that liberals are more likely than conservatives to endorse climate policies. Scholars attribute this to differences in worldviews, elite cues, and misinformation. But political divisions are also emotional, as evidenced by partisans’ increasingly disliking one another. Recent work extends this pattern beyond political identity to the domain of issue-based polarization. The authors apply these insights to the sociology of climate change, advancing the concept of affective climate polarization to situate climate attitudes as expressions of social identity and group affiliation. Drawing on original survey data from a nationally representative probability sample ( n = 2,503), the authors examine how supporters and opponents of decarbonization evaluate each other on dimensions of emotional warmth. Supporters and opponents both express in-group favoritism and outgroup dislike, patterns indicative of polarization. Supporters’ animosity appears driven by frustration at opponents’ resistance to endorsing policy to mitigate climate change. Opponents’ animosity seems to be driven by frustration at being morally judged for their climate attitudes. The authors argue that climate attitudes are increasingly tied to identity-based boundary-making, whereby individuals perceive those with opposing climate views as members of morally distinct (and suspect) groups. This contributes to theorizing climate politics as a site of social conflict, boundary-making, and emotionally grounded group differentiation.