World Citizenship and Concern for Global Warming: Building the Case for a Strong International Civil Society

Climate change shares many characteristics with classic social dilemmas. Social psychological studies of social dilemmas have found that individuals who identify as members of social groups are more likely to cooperate with Other group members. Using multilevel models and the 2005-2008 wave of the World Values Survey, I test the effect of four social identities-world citizen, national citizen, local community member, and autonomous individual-on the odds an individual considers global warming a very serious problem. I find that identification as a world citizen increases the odds an individual judges global warming to be very serious, but only for individuals who also identify as autonomous individuals. I argue that awareness of the individual and collective nature of environmental risks may strengthen efforts to promote ecological citizenship.