Experienced climate change impacts help explain subjective well‐being—Evidence from 14 nature‐dependent communities

Climate change profoundly affects well‐being in complex and interconnected ways. However, the relationship between climate change and well‐being has been explored in only a handful of settings, most of which are industrialized. Here, we investigate the association between perceived climate change impacts, their severity and subjective well‐being (measured as life satisfaction) using cross‐culturally comparable first‐hand reports from 2488 participants across 14 nature‐dependent communities. We find a negative association between site‐aggregated life satisfaction and different metrics of climate change: perceptions of local impacts, reported severity and instrumental measurements. Within sites, individual‐level associations between perceived severity of climate change impacts and life satisfaction are weak or absent. Further analysis suggests that site‐level characteristics play a crucial role in shaping these patterns. This could indicate that it is the overall vulnerability and exposure of a community to climate change impacts, rather than individual experiences that matters most. Our findings offer a nuanced understanding of how climate change impacts relate to well‐being, emphasizing the multidimensional character of climate change impacts and underscoring the importance of local context in shaping these relationships. ; Peer reviewed