Explaining Attitudes Towards Climate Action in Germany: AfD vs. the Greens, the East vs. the West, Wind vs. Solar Energy

This article analyses the drivers of individual-level support for – and opposition to – renewable energy in general, as well as wind and solar power specifically. We focus on the crucial case of Germany, where climate change has been a particularly salient issue. First, we show that party preferences are more effective in explaining attitudes than socio-demographic variables. Crucially, party support for the far-right AfD and the Greens serves as the strongest predictor but in opposite directions. Second, place matters: support for renewable energy is more likely in urban than in rural areas. Importantly, the German case also underlines the importance of another spatial dimension: in eastern Germany, support for renewable energy is less likely than in western Germany. Third, policy matters: attitudes towards wind power are more strongly linked to partisan identity than attitudes towards solar power, which reflects the stronger politicisation of wind power. We link our findings to key debates on climate-related attitudes, political dissatisfaction in ‘left-behind’ regions, as well as far-right climate obstruction. Methodologically, we rely on original survey data with over 5,000 respondents collected in 2024, a year when the AfD, a key force of climate obstruction, reached new electoral heights.