Natural hazards are an important way for individuals to experience consequences of climate change. It has therefore been suggested that natural hazards could act as opportunities to increase individuals’ concerns about, and willingness to act on, climate change. The empirical evidence within the field is however mixed. Moreover, the research field is drawn back by methodological shortcomings, as studies rarely have been able to make valid pre-hazard assessments. A more accurate estimation of a possible causal effect is enabled in this study, as a survey mapping climate change opinions was conducted in Germany when the country was hit by a rare and severe hazard event, namely the European Floods. This provides an opportunity to examine the effect of hazard exposure on individuals’ levels of climate change concerns and willingness to adopt climate change-related actions. Three sets of hypotheses are tested using two-sample t-tests. The findings suggest that natural hazards have limited potential to act as teachable moments; climate change concerns may increase, but not willingness to take action. Political ideology is found to slightly moderate the effect between hazard exposure and climate change concerns, but only among right-leaning individuals. These findings make an important contribution to a mixed research field.

Klimatförändringarnas stora problematik är ett av de mest diskuteradeämnena idag och är högst avgörande för framtiden och kommandegenerationer. Dagens ungdomar anser att klimatet är den viktigastesamhällsfrågan och ungdomar en viktig grupp att lägga fokus på vidforskning. Syftet med studien var att undersöka hur unga motiveras att ageramer klimatvänligt utifrån tillit till klimatforskare, känslan av att kunnapåverka samt oro för klimatförändringarna. Tidigare forskning på vuxna harhittat signifikanta samband mellan alla dessa aspekter vilket denna studieockså gjorde. I studien fann vi även att oro för klimatförändringarna var denunikt viktigaste faktorn för att förklara det klimatvänliga handlandet när mankontrollerade för de andra variablerna. Studien genomfördes med hjälp av enwebb-enkät som distribuerades till gymnasieelever i Göteborg och Rönninge(N=106). Aktuell studie utfördes med en tvärsnittsdesign där måtten vartillförlitliga och väl validerade. Resultaten har bidragit till både praktiskaimplikationer såväl som intressanta teoretiska frågor för framtida forskning. / Climate change and the major problems it brings is the most discussed topictoday and are crucial for the future and future generations. Today'sadolescents consider the climate changes to be the most important societalissue and young people are an essential group to focus on when it comes toresearch. The aim with this study was to examine how young people getmotivated to act more pro-environmental based on trust in climate scientists,efficacy and climate change concern. Previous research with adults has foundsignificant correlations between all these aspects, so did this study. The studyalso found that climate change concern was the sole most important factor inexplaining pro-environmental behavior when controlling for the othervariables. The study was executed with a web survey that was distributed tohigh school students in Göteborg and Rönninge (N=106). The study wasconducted with a cross-sectional design where the measurements werereliable and well validated. The results have both practical implications aswell as it has aroused interesting theoretical questions for future research.