The term climate anxiety has increasingly appeared in the academic literature and popular discourse since 2019, typically when discussing young people’s negative emotional responses to climate change. This paper reports results from a nationally representative survey of the Norwegian public (N = 2040) that investigated whether people respond differently to descriptions of young people “having climate anxiety”, compared with being “concerned” or “worried” about climate change. Results from the survey experiment showed stronger support for politicians taking young people’s climate concern or climate worry into consideration when designing new climate policy as compared with young people’s climate anxiety. Analyses of an open-ended question asking what people think of when they hear or read the term “climate anxiety” showed that most respondents (52%) provided neutral descriptions (e.g., worry about climate change impacts), 27% viewed climate anxiety as unfounded, irrational, or excessive, and equal proportions of respondents critiqued the term specifically for contributing to such negative associations (6%) or referred to climate anxiety as a reasonable and rational reaction (6%). These findings indicate that among some audiences, using the term climate anxiety may provoke reactance and be perceived as distracting from political actions to mitigate climate change. Our results give important insights into the potential consequences of the terms we use when reporting on climate distress.

Based on national survey data from Norway, this study assesses if exposure to the IPCC special report on global warming of 1.5 °C can be associated with support for climate protests and mitigation policies. Respondents were asked if they had heard about the report (closed-ended question) and what they had learned from or about the report (open-ended question). Analyses of the closed-ended question showed that those who had heard about the report were also more likely to express their support for, as well as to plan on engaging in, protest for increased action by the government against climate change. A similar pattern was observed with respect to support for policy changes that can assist in mitigating climate change. Complementary analyses of the open-ended question revealed that evaluative statements formed the largest category of responses. This category included both references to the seriousness of the evolving climate crisis and comments questioning the credibility of the presented information, with the former being the most frequent response. The findings from this study are discussed in the context of public engagement with climate change, with a particular scope on the potential impacts of making the insights from scientific reports known to the general public.

A national sample from Norway (N = 2001) was asked to report how much they worry about climate change (closed-ended question), and then to write down their reasons for (not) being worried (open-ended question). Answers to the open-ended question were content analyzed and compared across responses to the closed-ended question. The results showed that the most common reason for being at least somewhat worried was concern about the consequences of climate change. Respondents reporting high worry were in particular more likely to bring up consequences for humans than those reporting medium worry. Respondents who reported low worry referred to a broader range of reasons in their answers, such as believing in natural rather than human causes of climate change, expressing a sense of optimism towards potential solutions, or being discontent with political measures or public discourse on climate change. These findings add novel insights into understanding the subjective meaning associated with the degree to which people report being worried about climate change.

This study examines what individuals expect will be the most important impacts of climate change on their respective countries, and how these expectations relate to individual risk judgments. Open-ended responses from representative samples in four European countries (each n > 1000), were sorted into six categories: expectations of climate change leading to changes in attitudes and goals, human activities, emissions and pollution, environmental changes, impacts on humans, or few or no impacts. The results showed that the most frequently mentioned climate change impacts were related to environmental changes. Although most results were consistent across the UK, Norway, Germany, and France, some differences were identified. For example, respondents in the UK and Norway more frequently mentioned changes in human actions and activities among the most important climate change impacts. We also found differences between demographic groups; men, those in the oldest age groups, and those placing themselves further right on the political spectrum were more likely to expect few or no consequences of climate change on their country. Additional analyses examined relationships between the six impact categories and two different measures of individual risk judgments. Those expecting climate change to lead to changes in attitudes and goals, environmental changes, or impacts on humans reported higher levels of worry about climate change and expected more negative effects on their country. Climate change worry, but not the evaluation of how positive or negative effects will be on one's country, was further related to the number of consequences mentioned in response to the open-ended question and the specificity conveyed.

How should researchers communicate about (politicized) risks, such as climate change? Some argue that researchers should express more emotions to emphasize the seriousness of the climate issue and persuade the public to act. However, there is still a lack of research on the consequences of emotion expressions in research communication. In the current study, we investigated people's evaluations of climate researchers described as being angry or sad when communicating about climate change and whether the effects depend on the researcher's gender. Our results, based on a nationally representative survey experiment (Study 1, N = 2046), showed no significant interaction effects between the researchers' gender and emotion expression nor any main effects of gender. However, we did find that information provided by angry researchers was less trusted than information provided by researchers described as expressing sadness or no emotion. Researchers described as angry were further taken less seriously compared to researchers who did not express emotions. Still, the effects were very small and were not replicated in a follow-up study (Study 2, N = 1219). In Study 1, we also considered the respondents' own climate emotions. Those reporting stronger anger or sadness both took the researcher more seriously and had higher trust in the provided information. The effects of the respondents' own emotions were far larger than those of the emotion expressed by the researchers. We found no interaction effects for emotion similarity between the researcher and the respondent with regards to taking the researcher seriously. However, those reporting no sadness or low to moderate levels of anger had higher trust in information provided by non-emotional as compared to sad or angry researchers, respectively.

Climate-related anger is present in Greta Thunberg's speeches and the acts of Extinction Rebellion, but also in the rise of movements protesting climate policies, such as the Yellow Vests. The current study (N = 2,046) gives insight into the content of climate anger among the Norwegian public, as well as the relationship between anger and climate change engagement. Analyzing responses to the open-ended survey question "What is it about climate change that makes you angry?", we find that the most common reason was human actions causing climate change. Respondents also frequently pointed to responsible agents, especially politicians. Controlling for other climate emotions, as well as socio-demographics, anger strength was differentially related to three types of climate change engagement; it was the strongest predictor of self-reported activism, positively related to policy support, but not related to individual mitigation efforts. Among those reporting anger, directing it towards human qualities or actions was consistently and positively related to individual behavior, policy support, and activism while referring to responsible agents was not related to either. 'Contrarian' anger, reflecting skepticism towards the threat of climate change or dissatisfaction with mitigation measures, constituted 10% of the responses and had a negative effect on all outcomes. Overall, we find that both the strength and content of climate anger are relevant for climate change engagement. Our findings illustrate the need to avoid simplistic discussions of climate emotions and their motivational potential.

This article presents findings from a representative survey, fielded through the Norwegian Citizen Panel, examining public perceptions of hydrogen fuel and its different production methods. Although several countries, including Norway, have strategies to increase the production of hydrogen fuel, our results indicate that hydrogen as an energy carrier, and its different production methods, are still unknown to a large part of the public. A common misunderstanding seems to be confusing ‘hydrogen fuel’ in general with environmentally friendly ‘green hydrogen’. Results from a survey experiment (N = 1906) show that production method is important for public acceptance. On a five-point acceptance scale, respondents score on average 3.9 for ‘green’ hydrogen, which is produced from renewable energy sources. The level of acceptance is significantly lower for ‘blue’ (3.2) and ‘grey’ (2.3) hydrogen when respondents are informed that these are produced from coal, oil, or natural gas. Public support for hydrogen fuel in general, as well as the different production methods, is also related to their level of worry about climate change, gender, and political affiliation. Widespread misunderstandings regarding ‘green’ hydrogen production could potentially fuel public resistance as new ‘blue’ or ‘grey’ projects develop. Our results indicate a need for clearer communication from the government and developers regarding production methods to avoid distrust and potential public backfire.

According to the ‘finite pool of worry’ hypothesis, one may expect that introducing a novel concern (e.g., about a pandemic) may reduce concern about an existing issue (e.g., about climate change). Drawing upon representative longitudinal panel data from Norway (N = 7998), this paper explores if and how worry about climate change changed from January 2020 (before COVID-19 was detected in Norway) to January 2021 (during one of the pandemic waves). The current analyses indicate a small but significant decrease in worry about climate change among the general public during this time interval, in particular among respondents born before 1980. However, the change in climate change worry did not correlate with worrying about personally becoming infected with COVID-19 or with family members being infected. Thus, the results do not indicate a mechanism of worrying about COVID-19 infections leading to a decrease in people's worry about climate change. The findings are discussed in relation to empirical evidence from other countries, where climate change risk perceptions have been monitored during the recent pandemic. Possible explanations for observed differences in worry about climate change, as well as the lack of correlation between the change in climate change worry and worry about COVID-19, are discussed.

This paper explores whether efficacy beliefs can alter the relationship between worry about climate change and personal energy-saving behaviors, controlling for climate change beliefs and socio-demographics. For this purpose, we used data from 23 countries that participated in the European Social Survey Round 8 (N = 44 387). Worry about climate change, personal efficacy, personal outcome expectancy, and collective outcome expectancy were each associated with personal energy-saving behaviors concerning either energy curtailment or energy efficiency. The results further show that outcome expectancies moderate the association between worry about climate change and both types of energy behaviors. Worry was more strongly related to energy curtailment behaviors among those with high levels of personal and collective outcome expectancy. A similar pattern was found for energy efficiency behaviors, which were more strongly predicted by worry about climate change when combined with high levels of collective outcome expectancy. These findings are relevant for climate change communication, especially informational campaigns aiming to lower overall household energy use.

Public perceptions are well established as a key factor in support for climate change mitigation policies, and they tend to vary both within and between countries. Based on data from the European Social Survey Round 8 (N = 44,387), we examined the role of climate change beliefs and political orientation in explaining worry about climate change across 23 countries. We show that belief in anthropogenic climate change, followed by expectations of negative impacts from climate change, are the strongest predictors of worry about climate change. While the strength of the association between political orientation and worry about climate change varies across countries, self-positioning further to the right of the political spectrum is associated with lower levels of worry in most of the countries included in the analysis. We further show that political orientation moderates the relationship between climate change beliefs and worry. While increased confidence in the anthropogenic nature of climate change and expectations of negative impacts are both associated with increased worry across the political spectrum, the relationship is weaker among right-leaning as compared to left-leaning individuals. Notably, the main effect of political orientation on worry about climate change is no longer statistically significant when the interaction terms are present. Finally, a relatively small amount of the explained variance in worry is attributable to differences between countries. The findings might inform strategies for climate change communication in a European context.