PERCEPTIONS OF CLIMATE CHANGE: HOW DEMOGRAPHIC GROUPS ACROSS LATIN AMERICA GRASP THE CONSEQUENCES OF A WARMING CLIMATE
In 2015, the United Nations introduced the Sustainable Development Goals, where SDG 13 addressed the urgent need to improve climate change awareness (United Nations, 2021). As Latin American territories face increasing desertification, extreme weather events, and water and food insecurity, it is important to ask- how aware are Latin Americans of anthropogenic climate change? In this paper, I will use data from Vanderbilt University’s Latin American Public Opinion Project (LAPOP) survey to perform cross-tabulation analyses and Chi-square tests to identify who is aware of anthropogenic climate change. The paper will focus specifically on the perception of climate change by Latin American country, as well as five demographic groups within the region- age group, sex, residential location, education level, and ethnicity. The results will conclude that overall, the majority of Latin Americans perceive climate change as a serious issue, where 75.7% report climate change to be “very serious,” and only 3.3% report climate change to be “not at all serious.”