What do you think about climate change?

To answer this question, this paper reviews the huge and growing body of empirical literature on climate change awareness and summarizes insights emerging from a critical review of about 220 papers. It provides (i) a historical overview of climate change awareness worldwide, (ii) a guide to the most widely used datasets, with particular attention to the wording of questions used to measure climate change awareness when the analysis is performed at individual level; (iii) a detailed analysis of the main socio-economic and climatological determinants of climate change awareness, such as age, gender, education, political values, the use of mass media and social media, social and institutional trust, experience of extreme weather conditions and the stage of development of the country where people live; and (iv) a summary of the main implications of these findings in terms of public policy responses.