Floods of change? Extreme weather, political orientation and climate attitudes in Norway

A growing body of scholarship examines the impact of extreme weather events on the climate attitudes of those who experience them. However, one aspect of the puzzle that requires further clarification is whether political dispositions moderate this relationship – do ideologues and partisans of different orientations respond to the experience of extreme weather in uniform fashion, or do these political characteristics prompt heterogeneous responses? The present study addresses this question with a longitudinal analysis of the impact of flood experience on climate change attitudes, using panel data in Norway. Specifically, I examine how individual-level concern about climate change and opposition to fossil fuel extraction changes as a result of experiencing flooding in 2018, net of individual heterogeneity. Results indicate that flood experience induces greater climate concern but has no effect on attitudes to the extraction of fossil fuels. Ideology and partisanship do not significantly alter this relationship – regardless of political orientation, individuals become more concerned about climate change following flood experience. Synthesising these findings with insights from the extant literature, I advance the novel argument that political context conditions responses to extreme weather: when political elites are polarised over climate change, extreme weather events will induce ideological and partisan polarisation; but when elites arrive at a climate consensus, ideologues and partisans of all colours will become more concerned about climate change following the experience of such an event. The findings of the present study help clarify the influence of political orientation on responses to extreme weather, and more broadly act as a call to pay greater attention to political context when analysing meteorological phenomena and their consequences.