Public attitudes towards sustainable development in a changing world: evidence from COVID-19

The impact of major global events on public attitudes towards sustainable development is crucial for shaping global public policy. This paper explores this relationship by examining how COVID-19 has affected public attitudes towards sustainability. We analyzed data from an online survey of 23, 895 respondents across China in February 2020 to study the relationship between the severity of the pandemic and public attitudes, as well as the underlying dynamics, including the mediating roles of government intervention and media trust. Our findings indicate a significant negative correlation between the severity of COVID-19 and Chinese public attitudes towards sustainable development, particularly among employees, females, younger individuals, and those with a college degree or above. We further find that public interventions (i.e. governmental regulations) promote a positive shift in attitude through mediating effects. We also discover that an individual’s trust in public media plays a role in mediating the effect between individual exposure to media and a supportive attitude towards sustainable development. This study deepens our understanding of how public attitudes change in response to major events, providing valuable insights into the interplay between global events and public opinion on sustainability.