Climate impact, which refers to the losses resulting from climate change-related events, is one of the most pressing challenges for societies worldwide. Contributing to the climate impact–entrepreneurship nexus, we assess how climate impact affects individual engagement in opportunity entrepreneurship. Drawing on the attention-based view (ABV) and on socio-cognitive theory (SCT), we hypothesize that climate impact increases opportunity entrepreneurship, and that this effect is moderated by individuals’ socio-cognitive characteristics. Combining data from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) and the Climate Risk Index (CRI), we conduct a multilevel analysis that involves 964,440 individuals from 94 countries from 2010 to 2018. In support of our hypotheses, our results suggest that climate impact is positively related to engagement in opportunity entrepreneurship. We also find that this association is negatively moderated by entrepreneurial self-efficacy and entrepreneurial alertness, and positively by entrepreneurial fear of failure. We conclude by discussing the implications of our attention-based understanding of climate impact as a catalyst for opportunity entrepreneurship.

气候影响是指气候变化相关事件造成的损失，是全球社会面临的最紧迫挑战之一。为了促进气候影响与创业的关系，我们评估了气候影响如何影响个人参与机会创业。借鉴基于注意力的观点 （ABV） 和社会认知理论 （SCT），我们假设气候影响会增加机会创业，而这种影响受到个人社会认知特征的调节。结合来自全球创业监测 （GEM） 和气候风险指数 （CRI） 的数据，我们进行了一项多层次分析，涉及 2010 年至 2018 年来自 94 个国家/地区的 964,440 人。为了支持我们的假设，我们的结果表明，气候影响与参与机会创业呈正相关。我们还发现，这种关联受到创业自我效能感和创业警觉性的负向调节，而创业者对失败的恐惧则受到正向调节。最后，我们讨论了我们对气候影响的基于注意力的理解作为机会创业催化剂的影响。