J. Sociol. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1440783316684661 (2017)

Despite the growing consensus that climate change mitigation is necessary, the public remains resistant to personally contributing. This has been attributed to both cost–benefit analysis and the tendency to prioritize present over future goods. This suggests that inaction on climate change is driven by deep-rooted, universal aspects of human rationality.

Louis Everuss from the University of South Australia and colleagues compare willingness of different national populations to contribute to climate change mitigation. A cross-national survey shows that individuals in Lisbon, Portugal, are more willing to pay for climate mitigation than those in Adelaide, Australia, despite the fact that Lisbon has a lower GDP and higher unemployment. Furthermore, willingness to contribute in both countries was not influenced by presenting negative impacts of climate change as occurring within respondents' lifetime versus affecting their descendants. These results challenge broad assumptions that climate change is a lower priority in poorer countries and is discounted because of its delayed effects. Instead, public engagement with climate change may be tied to contextual social and cultural factors.