{"id":6352,"date":"2026-02-06T03:31:00","date_gmt":"2026-02-06T04:31:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/diinsiderlife.com\/?p=6352"},"modified":"2026-02-06T07:12:50","modified_gmt":"2026-02-06T07:12:50","slug":"weather-related-disasters-can-sway-votes-but-wont-deliver-climate-action-study-shows","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/diinsiderlife.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/06\/weather-related-disasters-can-sway-votes-but-wont-deliver-climate-action-study-shows\/","title":{"rendered":"Weather-related disasters can sway votes but won\u2019t deliver climate action, study shows"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A new\u00a0study<\/a>\u00a0shows that, despite fires, floods and record heat, most Australians do not change their behaviour or beliefs in response to climate change \u2013 except in a narrow window following a disaster.<\/p>\n

Lead author Dr\u00a0Omid Ghasemi from the\u00a0UNSW Institute for Climate Risk & Response<\/a>\u00a0(ICRR) says the study set out to answer a central question in climate policy: whether rising climate-related costs would drive stronger public action.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0UNSW researchers\u00a0tracked thousands of data points from 2013 to 2022, comparing\u00a0weather\u00a0patterns\u00a0and one-off extreme events, such as bushfires and floods, across different postcodes with shifts in climate beliefs, voting patterns,\u00a0and\u00a0solar panel installation.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople tend to struggle to act on decisions that involve short-term costs for long-term benefits, like climate change, where efforts in emissions reduction or resilience investment may not pay off for decades.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe question we wanted to test was whether first-hand experience of climate change \u2013 from floods, fires and heatwaves as well as gradual shifts in the weather \u2013 is enough to spur action.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile the data cannot show what\u2019s happening inside individual households, the scale of the analysis \u2013 controlling for a wide range of demographic factors \u2013 allows us to spot a shift in voting and beliefs in the aftermath of a weather-related disaster.<\/p>\n

\u201cStill, personal experience of climate change matters far less than economic and social forces in shaping what people believe and do.<\/p>\n

\u201cExtreme events and climate abnormalities are no substitute for political leadership. Waiting for climate impacts to spur climate action will not work.\u201d<\/p>\n

A brief ballot nudge<\/p>\n

The researchers compared primary vote shares in federal elections with recent insurance claims for floods, cyclones, severe storms and hail across Australian postcodes.<\/p>\n

They found that when a disaster occurred shortly before an election, support for parties with stronger climate policies \u2014 Labor and the Greens \u2014 rose slightly.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat increase peaks when the disaster happens within a month of voting,\u201d Dr\u00a0Ghasemi says.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn a close race, the data suggest a weather-related disaster a month before polling day may be enough to tip the result towards a more climate-aligned party.<\/p>\n

\u201cStill, the effect is modest. In practical terms, it\u2019s a nudge, not a shift.\u201d<\/p>\n

The effect faded over time and after about four months, there was no association between a weather-related disaster and voting.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy comparing disaster-hit postcodes with similar unaffected areas, and controlling for income, age and long-term weather trends, we could see the effect was real \u2013 but narrow and temporary,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

A belated shift in belief, but not behaviour<\/p>\n

In contrast, people\u2019s belief that climate change was happening \u2013 and caused at least in part by human activity \u2013 appeared to strengthen in the months after a disaster.<\/p>\n

The researchers analysed responses from more than 8000 survey participants to whether they believed climate change \u201cis happening now and is caused mainly by human activities\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople were more likely to hold this belief when a disaster had occurred four to 12 months before they were surveyed,\u201d Dr\u00a0Ghasemi says.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe found no meaningful shift in belief when the event was recent \u2013 in the previous one to three months.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou could imagine that, right after a flood or fire, people are focused on immediate concerns, like repairing damage, dealing with insurance, or helping family and neighbours.<\/p>\n

\u201cReflection about causes may come later and depend on how the event has been framed in the media, or within a person\u2019s community.\u201d<\/p>\n

Crucially, any changes in belief were relatively small.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are detectable in large datasets,\u201d he says, \u201cbut not large enough to transform public attitudes at scale.\u201d<\/p>\n

Disasters also\u00a0did not appear to change personal climate behaviours, which the researchers measured through rooftop solar uptake.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cAcross a\u00a0decade that included the Black Summer fires, the 2019\u201320 drought and three consecutive La Ni\u00f1a years, households in affected postcodes were no more likely to install solar in the months or year after a disaster,\u201d Dr Ghasemi says.<\/p>\n

\u201cA faint signal emerged seven to 12 months later \u2013 but it was trivial compared with bigger predictors like income, age and home ownership.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Co-author Dr Matteo\u00a0Malavasi, from\u00a0UNSW\u2019s\u00a0School of Risk and Actuarial Studies,\u00a0says the study offers rare insight into how people respond to gradual climate changes versus short, extreme events.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese risks send very different signals,\u201d Dr\u00a0Malavasi\u00a0says.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cAcute events may cut through, in a limited way. Slow, ongoing changes in climate seem to fade into the background.\u201d<\/p>\n

The researchers\u00a0compared\u00a0how unusual temperature and rainfall conditions were,\u00a0relative\u00a0to the previous 30 years\u00a0with the same measures of belief and\u00a0behaviour.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe effects of longer-term unusual\u00a0weather were inconsistent and small \u2013 too small to matter for real-world outcomes,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Why experience\u00a0isn\u2019t\u00a0enough<\/p>\n

Part of the explanation, says co-author Professor Ben Newell, lies in psychology.<\/p>\n

\u201cResearch on risk perception shows people rely on short memory windows,\u201d\u00a0says Prof Newell, who is also Director of the ICRR.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople may also recalibrate what counts as \u2018normal\u2019\u00a0weather based on recent years, making ongoing shifts less striking over time.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is the boiling-frog problem: when change comes in slow increments rather than a sudden jolt, people adapt rather than react, even as the cumulative risk grows.<\/p>\n

\u201cCatastrophes\u00a0impact\u00a0our risk judgments by virtue of their vividness and recency, but\u00a0that effect fades fast, crowded out by everyday demands. Once the headlines disappear, so does the urgency.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnother reason disasters have limited impact is that pre-existing factors strongly shape how people think about climate change.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The\u00a0researchers\u00a0found\u00a0political identity to be the most powerful predictor of climate belief, outweighing any response to extreme\u00a0weather.<\/p>\n

Liberal and National voters were far less likely to accept human-caused climate change than Greens supporters, even when living through the same disasters.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cOne possible explanation is that perceptual filters \u2013 media habits, trusted messengers and community norms \u2013 continue to shape how people interpret extreme\u00a0weather,\u201d Dr Ghasemi says.<\/p>\n

\u201cPolitical factors appear far more influential than immediate personal experience of climate extremes.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Structural factors, which are the economic and social settings that make action easier for some people and harder for others,\u00a0also played\u00a0a\u00a0decisive role.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Solar uptake\u00a0appears\u00a0heavily\u00a0influenced by subsidies, home ownership, rental arrangements, energy\u00a0prices\u00a0and income.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIncome and age were the strongest predictors of solar installation.\u00a0 Postcodes with an older and\u00a0wealthier population on average\u00a0adopted solar at higher rates, regardless of the\u00a0weather,\u201d Dr Ghasemi says.<\/p>\n

\u201cGender appears to matter too. Areas with more female residents were slightly more likely to vote for climate-aligned parties but had lower rooftop solar uptake \u2013 likely reflecting\u00a0uneven access to capital and home ownership.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, while the electorate does react to disasters and climate change, those reactions are modest, short-lived, and shaped by identity and economic resources. They are not what ultimately moves the needle on climate action.\u201d<\/p>\n

This press release has also been published on <\/b>VRITIMES<\/b><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A new\u00a0study\u00a0shows that, despite fires, floods and record heat, most Australians do not change their behaviour or beliefs in response to climate change \u2013 except in a narrow window following a disaster. Lead author Dr\u00a0Omid Ghasemi from the\u00a0UNSW Institute for Climate Risk & Response\u00a0(ICRR) says the study set out to answer a central question in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6354,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6352","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/diinsiderlife.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/public-3",1024,768,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/diinsiderlife.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/public-3-150x150.",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/diinsiderlife.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/public-3-300x225.",300,225,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/diinsiderlife.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/public-3-768x576.",768,576,true],"large":["https:\/\/diinsiderlife.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/public-3",1024,768,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/diinsiderlife.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/public-3",1024,768,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/diinsiderlife.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/public-3",1024,768,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"diinsiderlife","author_link":"https:\/\/diinsiderlife.com\/index.php\/author\/diinsiderlife\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"A new\u00a0study\u00a0shows that, despite fires, floods and record heat, most Australians do not change their behaviour or beliefs in response to climate change \u2013 except in a narrow window following a disaster. Lead author Dr\u00a0Omid Ghasemi from the\u00a0UNSW Institute for Climate Risk & Response\u00a0(ICRR) says the study set out to answer a central question in…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/diinsiderlife.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6352","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/diinsiderlife.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/diinsiderlife.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diinsiderlife.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diinsiderlife.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6352"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/diinsiderlife.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6352\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6353,"href":"https:\/\/diinsiderlife.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6352\/revisions\/6353"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diinsiderlife.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6354"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/diinsiderlife.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6352"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diinsiderlife.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6352"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diinsiderlife.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6352"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}