Addressing climate change requires challenging and costly structural and behavioral changes. Historically, political polarization has obstructed coordinated action on climate change and fueled climate science denial, especially in the United States. This 'ideological divide' on climate change has been extensively studied in Anglophone countries, but remains poorly understood in Denmark, where the political landscape differs greatly from that of the U.S. This emphasizes the need for local insights to aid the Danish green transition. This PhD thesis explores the extent and ideological roots of polarization and disagreement on climate change among the Danish public. It comprises three empirical studies and spans climate communication, environmental psychology, and social and political psychology.
In Article I, Polarization within Consensus?, we segmented a nationally representative sample (N = 1365) and identified six climate attitude segments. Climate attitudes were negatively associated with right-orientated, hierarchical, and individualistic worldviews. A cross-cultural comparison showed that Danish climate attitudes are less polarized and more concerned about climate change than those of the US public. Article II, Comparing Attitudinal Structures Between Political Orientations, explored structural differences in how right- and left-oriented groups perceive climate change. We formalized attitudes as attitudinal
networks and compared the networks of left and right-oriented people, revealing both similarities as well as differences in central nodes and predictive patterns. In Article III, Intersectional Climate Communication, we studied the effects of intersectional message frames (focused on climate migration) on public climate attitudes through a Social Identity lens. In a causal design (N = 843), we found that intersectional messages did not polarize public opinion but did increase suspicion about the messenger.
A common thread throughout these studies is the observation that Danes share striking commonalities in their climate attitudes. These attitudes show variation - particularly in terms of engagement and willingness to take action - but they are not divided. The thesis concludes by discussing this research’s relevance to the concept of an ideological divide and perspectives on normativity in climate attitude and communication research.