Data from: Increasing belief but issue fatigue: changes in Australian Household Climate Change Segments between 2011 and 2016

We applied the segmentation methodology developed by Leiserowitz, Maibach,
and Roser-Renouf (2009) to national Australian samples collected in 2011
(n=1927) and 2016 (n=2503). In both samples we identified six Australian
household segments which we labelled alarmed, concerned, cautious,
disengaged, doubtful and dismissive. Between the two periods, we found the
proportion of households in the alarmed and concerned segments was stable;
however there was a decrease (28% to 20%) in the proportion of households
in the doubtful and dismissive segments and an increase (27% to 33%) in
the cautious and disengaged segments. We found that a greater proportion
of households have personally experienced climate change, and were more
likely to believe in human causation and believe that there is a
scientific consensus about the issue. However, there was evidence of issue
fatigue. Households were less likely to report that they had thought about
climate change or talked about it with their friends in 2016 relative to
2011. They were also less likely to pursue certain climate friendly
behaviours or reward or punish companies for their climate behaviours.
These findings suggest a need to motivate households to maintain efforts
to mitigate climate change, particularly the cautious and disengaged
households that are more amenable to changing their views about this
issue.