The impact of Ukraine’s war outbreak on green preferences in Europe

This study examines the impact of the Ukraine war on pro-environmental attitudes. Using the 2021-2022 wave of the European Social Survey, we leverage the timing of the war's outbreak in February 2022 as a natural experiment. By comparing the pro-environmental preferences of individuals interviewed just before and after the war's onset across nine European countries, we find a significant decline on political preferences for pro-environmental political parties and concerns for climate change. Further investigation reveals that rising energy prices and the salience of the war itself, as measured by Google searches, partially mediate these effects.