The existing literature (Wang & Zhou, 2020) seems to suggest that the majority of the Chinese public have a high awareness of climate change and understand that the issue was human-caused. And most of the Chinese public are willing to pay more for climate-friendly products and have realized the importance to adapt to a less carbon-intensive lifestyle. However, most of the existing survey studies fail to provide rigorous contextual factor analyses, which leaves the social, cultural, and economic structures underpinning the climate problem untouched. We argue that without thoroughly investigating these structural and contextual roots, we can never truly find ways to motivate Chinese public engagement with climate change and further effectively solve the problem.

This present study investigates Chinese public engagement with climate change, answering the questions: QR1: How do Chinese public perceive climate change? QR2: How do the contextual factors, i.e., social, economic, and cultural factors, function behind? QR3: What are the implications for Chinese public engagement with climate change?

By conducting a national survey with 1500 respondents, we find a series of variables that can predict climate perception and actions. Among all the results, the most notable is that both economic leftism and rightism can positively predict climate actions, which indicates economy is the major consideration of Chinese public regarding climate actions. Similar to economic ideology, both cultural leftism and rightism can also positively predict climate actions. Nationalism is another important positive predictor of climate actions: People who rate higher on nationalism are more willing to act. These results carry implications for understanding as well as mobilizing Chinese public engagement with climate change.