Responsibility for Future Generations and Climate Change Mitigation: A Cross-National Study of Predictors of Pro-environmentalism in Europe

Feeling personally responsible for climate change is a key predictor of pro-environmental action.Recent U.S.-based research finds that people more strongly endorse responsibility to protectfuture generations (RFG) than responsibility to reduce climate change (RCC). Here, weconceptually replicated this finding across six European countries and tested whether RFG andRCC predicted climate-relevant attitudes beyond the U.S. context. Consistent with prior work,RFG was endorsed slightly more than RCC, and both types of responsibility significantlypredicted support for climate policy. Additionally, RFG and RCC were positively associatedwith negative emotional responses to climate change and with attributions of increasing severeweather events, both past and anticipated, to climate change. These results suggest that even inless polarized political environments, responsibility to future generations is more widelyendorsed than responsibility to mitigate climate change. Still, both constructs appearpsychologically meaningful and help explain variation in climate concern and policy support.