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Interest groups campaign to influence public opinion on climate change, yet few studies have empirically examined whether they are successful in their aims. The current study investigates the extent to which characteristic arguments used by environmental and industry-backed interest groups are able to influence the public's climate policy preferences. Using an original online survey experiment conducted in the UK (N = 796), we find that interest group messages can affect climate policy preferences. After reading an argument supporting a policy, respondents were significantly more likely than the control group to support the (strong or weak) policy endorsed by the argument, although broader policy views were unaffected. Policy endorsements had the same effect on policy preferences whether or not emphasis frames were used, and the effects were not moderated by the personal importance of climate change. Overall, the moderate effect sizes suggest that interest groups have limited influence over the public's climate policy preferences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate policy across the developed world remains inadequate, despite high levels of concern about climate change among the public. Yet public opinion on climate change is complex, with individuals differing on three key opinion dimensions: belief and concern, issue salience, and support for government action. In this study, we investigate how these dimensions intersect at the individual level. Based on data from an online survey conducted in 2018 in the United Kingdom (N = 787), a latent class analysis reveals that there are five climate change opinion publics. The two largest publics have strong beliefs that climate change is occurring, but view it as a low salience issue, or are wary of government action to address it. We also investigate sociopolitical covariates of each public. By providing a detailed picture of climate change views, these findings can help us to better understand the relationship between public opinion and climate policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]