The influence of the 2021 European flooding on pro-environmental attitudes and partial behaviour transition

One of the reasons why people do not act pro-environmentally might be a lack of experience with the consequences of climate change. Studies have shown that higher levels of environmental attitudes and more environmentally friendly behaviours have been observed among people affected by extreme weather events. It is unclear, however, whether the events caused the changes or whether the affected people simply differed in their characteristics from those who were unaffected. We draw on a natural experiment to examine the causal link between flooding experiences, pro-environmental attitudes and pro-environmental behaviour using national survey data collected from 2058 individuals aged 16–29 years across Luxembourg. After people experienced the 2021 European flooding, their pro-environmental attitudes increased significantly. The effect was stronger in regions that were more affected by floods. Higher levels of environmental attitudes partly translated into greater willingness to act in a pro-environmental way. The results have important implications for advancing efforts to address climate change by demonstrating links between extreme weather events attributed to climate change and higher levels of environmental attitudes.

Hamid Bulut, Robin Samuel