Climate action versus environmental protection? How far-right and environmentalist messengers shape public attitudes towards renewable energy infrastructure in forests
Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: This article examines how political messengers, and not the message, influence attitudes toward renewable energy infrastructure amid an increasingly polarized climate change debate. Focusing on wind power, a highly politicized issue, and solar energy, less contentious, we conducted an experimental survey in Germany. We assess how either a far-right or an environmentalist critic affect acceptance of renewables. Importantly, our analysis examines support for renewables in forest areas, focusing on a conflict between climate action and local environmental protection. Our findings reveal that the messenger impacts attitudes regarding wind energy. Criticism of wind turbine expansion by an environmentalist actor leads to greater rejection, while a similar critique by a far-right actor results in increased acceptance, i.e. a backlash effect. No such influence was found for solar energy. We explain these diverging findings by differences in politicization. Our findings have important consequences for understanding key dynamics of the public debate and political conflict over climate action.
Source: Environmental Politics
Authors: Manès Weisskircher, Matthias Diermeier
Language: English
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
OpenAlex ID: W4414907302