چکیده (انگلیسی):

Climate change is a political as well as an environmental issue. Climate change beliefs are commonly associated with voting
behaviour, but are they associated with swings in voting behaviour? The latter are arguably more important for election
outcomes. This paper investigates the predictive power of these beliefs on voting swings at the 2010 Australian federal election
after controlling for a range of other related factors (demographic characteristics of voters, different worldviews about nature
and the role of government, and the perceived opportunity cost of addressing climate change). Drawing on data from two
nationally representative surveys of voters and data from the Australian Electoral Commission, this paper investigates
relationships between climate change beliefs and voting swings at both the individual and electorate levels. At an individual
level, a hypothetical 10% change in climate change beliefs was associated with a 2.6% swing from a conservative Coalition
and a 2.0% swing toward Labor and 1.7% toward the Greens party , both left on the political spectrum. At the electorate level,
this equates to a shift of 21 seats between the two main political parties (the Coalition and Labor) in Australia’s 150 seat
parliament, after allocating Green preferences. Given many seats are marginal, even modest shifts in climate change beliefs
can be associated with changes in electoral outcomes. Thus, climate change is expected to remain a politically contested
issue in countries like Australia where political parties seek to distinguish themselves, in part, by their responses to climate
change.