Intersecting Identities: Sociodemographic Heterogeneity in Right-Wing Climate Attitudes in the UK

Abstract

Climate change remains one of the most significant challenges of today. Political orientation, particularly right-wing leanings, is often cited as a key driver of climate scepticism. However, intra-group variations within political orientation categories remain underexplored. This paper uses data from a nationally representative UK survey (n = 3,033) to examine how sociodemographic factors intersect with political orientation in shaping climate opinions. The findings show that whilst political orientation constitutes the most significant predictor of climate opinion, opposition to climate action isn’t universal among the right-wing as previously thought. Whereas left-wing individuals exhibit strong commitment to climate advocacy with little variation across sociodemographic categories, right-wing individuals display significant heterogeneity, with formal interaction tests indicating that intra-group variations in sociodemographic effects are around eleven times greater than those observed among the left-wing group. Most notably, right-wing women with higher education and social grade hold climate views similar to those in the political centre, rather than the right-wing average. These findings suggest that examining the intersection of political orientation with other sociodemographic factors provides crucial insights into the complexity of public opinion formation on climate change, and indicate potential for increasing climate advocacy among specific right-wing subgroups, highlighting the need for targeted communication strategies.