Perceived risks from climate change and related impacts in U.S. frontline vs. non-frontline communities

Integrating two U.S. datasets – the Climate Change in the American Mind survey of climate change attitudes and the Council on Environmental Quality's Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool – we explore climate change-related beliefs and attitudes among people located in areas at disproportionate risk of harm from global warming (i.e., frontline communities, or FLC) compared with those not in FLC. Overall, we find nearly two-thirds of people in both FLC and non-FLC are worried about global warming, but the level of worry does not differ significantly between them. People in FLC have slightly greater worry about several climate change impacts, but they are not more likely to say they have personally experienced global warming. People in FLC are less likely to talk about global warming or hear about it in the media. Additional geographic analysis reveals variation in the relationships between FLC status and global warming worry by county.