Australian voters’ attitudes to climate action and their social-political determinants

disadvantage p = 0.0006 in univariate analysis), but both become non-significant in multivari- ate analysis, i.e. when analysed in the context of the other independent variables. If we view age in isolation from other variables such as political party preference, based on PEW generational categories [55] “Baby Boomers” (born 1946–1964) are half as likely as “Gen Z” (born 1996–2012) to consider it important to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (OR of gen- erational gap = 0.52, p < 0.0001). However, there is high covariance between age and political party preference, and in our analysis which treats all independent variables as equal (i.e. it does not recognise causal or path relationships between independent variables) political party pref- erence is better at explaining differences in attitudes toward the importance of Australia reduc- ing GHG emissions. The average age is older among those people who vote for Australia’s major conservative parties, and younger for those who vote for the progressive parties (ANOVA of age: p < 0.001; Liberal voter = 58.1a (mean age), ALP voter = 53b,c, Nationals voter = 62.8a, Greens voter = 46.5d, LNP voter = 58.2a,c; superscript letters indicate similarity/ difference using Tukey’s multiple comparisons of means at α = 95%). Which State respondents live in, and whether they live in capital cities or outside, is not a statistically significant determinant of stated support for climate change action, though these variables became significant in other climate opinion questions.

On how important climate change was to one’s vote: The ‘climate election’ that wasn’t About half of the respondents (52%) reported that climate change was important when decid- ing their vote in the 2019 Australian federal election. However, it was the most important issue for only 13%. Among the respondents who considered greenhouse gas reductions to be ‘extremely important’, the majority indicated that climate change was an ‘important’, but not the ‘most important’, issue when deciding their vote at the 2019 federal election (Fig 3). This suggests that climate change was an important factor, but not the decisive factor for a large majority of voters. Fig 3. Cross-tabulation of responses to the questions about importance of action and importance to vote, showing percent of all responses. “In your view, how important or unimportant is it that Australia takes action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in order to help limit future climate change?” (x axis) and “How much did the issue of climate change influence your vote in the 2019 Federal election? For you personally, would you say climate change was. . .?” (y axis). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0248268.g003 PLOS ONE Australian voters’ attitudes to climate action and their social-political determinants PLOS ONE | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0248268 March 24, 2021 7 / 18