Right-wing ideology reduces the effects of education on climate change beliefs in more developed countries

The effects of education on people's climate change beliefs vary as a function of political ideology: for those on the political left, education is related to pro-climate change beliefs, whereas for those on the political right, these effects are weak or negative. This phenomenon has been examined mainly in the US, where climate change has become a highly politicized issue; however, climate change is less politicized in other contexts. Here we analyse the effects of education and political ideology across 64 countries and show that education has positive effects on pro-climate change beliefs at low and mid-levels of development. At higher levels of development, right-wing ideology attenuates (but does not reverse) the positive effects of education. These analyses extend previous findings by systematically investigating the between-country variation in the relationship between education, ideology and climate change beliefs. The current findings suggest that US-centric theories on the topic should not be generally applied to other contexts uncritically. Education increases political polarization on climate change beliefs in the US. Here the authors find that this effect does not generalize to other contexts. Across 64 countries, education has positive effects on climate change beliefs, and interactions with ideology are more nuanced and contextual.