Madalina Vlasceanu, Daniel Goldvert, and Anandita Sabharwal
A growing number of New Yorkers are rallying behind the political promise that government must make life visibly better again. Mayor Mamdani has built momentum around policies like faster and free buses, universal child care, community grocery stores, affordable housing, and major clean infrastructure investments. What makes this strategy politically relevant is the underlying psychological promise that collective problems are solvable if we try. This belief may be a major factor in today’s climate action.
In our research article today in Communication Earth and environment involving more than 32,000 Americans, we found that people are significantly more likely to engage in political activity, advocate publicly, donate money, and change their lifestyles when they believe that actions, collective efforts, and governments can significantly reduce climate threats. More importantly, beliefs about government effectiveness emerged as one of the strongest predictors of overall climate engagement. People acted when they believed that institutions were capable of solving problems.
Examples of visible climate action despite political opposition
Despite intense political conflict and significant pushback by the current administration, including efforts to weaken the powers of the Environmental Protection Agency adjust greenhouse gases, Americans are still witnessing tangible evidence that large-scale climate action can be a direct result of advocacy. For example, clean energy placement continues to accelerate in all republican and democratic states. Since the Inflation Reduction Act was passed, companies have announced hundreds of layoffs billions dollars to clean energy and manufacturing investments in dozens of states. They are wind and solar energy is expanding battery factories and electric car factories are being built at a record speed throughout the country. When people see governments building infrastructure, using technology, and making tangible improvements in their lives, they may be drawn to collective action to keep the momentum going.
But this effect depends on people clearly connecting these improvements with the policies, political actors and advocates responsible for them. Recently research on clean energy investments under the Biden administration shows that even large climate spending failed to generate political credit or spur additional action because voters did not connect tangible local developments to government action.
This same dynamic helps explain why natural disasters are not continuous growth support for climate action if the link between the event and climate change clearly stated Media and political conversation. In a complex information environment, visible results alone are often insufficient. People also need to understand what caused them and who/what is responsible.
Differences in efficacy beliefs across political lines
Our research also found that Republicans in general reported lower self-efficacy, specifically lower self-efficacy confidence that governments can effectively tackle climate change. However, efficacy beliefs were more strongly associated with climate involvement among Republicans than among Democrats. In other words, when conservatives believed that action could work, they became more involved and suggested that the crossPartisan the way of mobilization.
These findings point to broader climate change politics. Over the past two decades, the fossil fuel industry and its political allies have moved on to deny climate change into human denial responsibilityto argue that scientists have not yet agreed on the evidence, or to discount it economically destroyer Increasingly, the message today is that meaningful action is futile and that governments are powerless. Fatalism is psychologically powerful because it perceives threat while undermining belief in agency and causing disempowerment. When people come to the conclusion that there is no reaction to the results, separation or to refuse be rational responses to reduce psychological distress.
Visible evidence of successful government action is therefore important. The deployment of clean energy, faster buses and universal child care show that democratic societies remain capable of solving complex problems. Therefore, the fight against climate change is more a fight over perceptions of effectiveness, whether citizens believe that their efforts can improve the future.
