Speaker
Description
Climate change and environmental degradation rank among the most urgent and complex challenges facing contemporary societies. Addressing them requires ambitious, long-term policies — yet the question of how such consequential decisions should be made remains deeply contested. Should they be left to elected politicians, delegated to independent experts, entrusted to citizens through participatory processes, or concentrated in the hands of authoritarian leaders able to bypass democratic constraints? Understanding public preferences for different decision-making models is essential for designing legitimate and effective forms of climate governance. This contribution addresses this question using data from The Social Study (2025) (https://thesocialstudy.be/), in which a representative sample of French-speaking Belgians was surveyed about a wide range of attitudes and behaviours related to climate change. The analysis explores how support for different governance models is rooted in citizens’ attitudes toward climate change (e.g., level of concern), perceptions of the political system (e.g., trust, ideological orientation), and subjective as well as objective socio-economic conditions. The findings will contribute to understanding the social and political foundations of legitimacy in governing the climate crisis.
| If your abstract is not accepted for an oral presentation, would you be interested in presenting it as a poster instead? | No |
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| If accepted by the Scientific Board, I agree to have my presentation/poster and abstract published on the Belgian Climate Centre websites and social media. | Yes |
