Public engagement with climate change

Question 1

Why engage?

Answer 1

“Warming of the climate system is unequivocal” (IPCC, 2007)

Question 2

Who is ‘the public’?

Answer 2

• myriad of different ‘publics’ - different values, aspirations and demographics - nationally-representative surveys can give some impression of widely-held views on climate change - in depth qualitative research can help to conceptualise similarities and differences between groups.

Question 3

What is public engagement?

Answer 3

‘a personal state of connection with the issue of climate change…concurrently comprising cognitive, affective and behavioural aspects’ Lorenzoni et al, 2007 ‘…an individual’s state of involvement in climate change at cognitive, affective and behavioral levels’ (Lorenzoni et al, 2007: 456)

Question 4

To engage with climate change

Answer 4

‘It is not enough for people to know about climate change in order to be engaged; they also need to care about it, be motivated, and be able to take action’ Lorenzoni et al, 2007

Question 5

Rationale for public engagement

Answer 5

As consumers of goods and services, influencing mitigation and/or adaptation outcomes But also: As citizens (policy legitimacy, public compliance, opportunities for mass mobilization)

Question 6

Public engagement: agents

Answer 6

• Governments - NGOs - Businesses - Artists - Media - Popular culture

Question 7

Fluctuations in engagement possibly due reasons such as

Answer 7

• ‘Climategate’ - IPCC reports - The COP15 meeting at Copenhagen

Question 8

Individual barriers to adaptation

Answer 8

Lack of knowledge about the causes, consequences or solutions, includes confusion. Uncertainty and scepticism about the causes of climate change, seriousness and necessity and effectiveness of action. Distrust in information services such as the media. Externalising responsibility and blame. Climate change is a distant threat, other things are more important, reluctance to change lifestyle, fatalism and “drop in the ocean” feeling

Question 9

Social barriers to adaptation

Answer 9

Lack of political action, lack of action by businesses, worry about free rider effect (not taking action because no one else is). Lack of initiatives - facilities are costly

Question 10

How do people and groups interact?

Answer 10

• Shaped by attitudes, understandings, habits - Shaped by heuristics - Shaped by social norms - May be influenced by cognitive biases – unrealistic optimism bias and the availability heuristic.

Question 11

Information deficit

Answer 11

‘An uncomplicated flow of data from experts, packaged by the media, to an under-informed, receptacle-like society’ (Smith, 2005) Assumes that the media have filed in their duty to inform, or scientists in their duty to clearly explain.

Question 12

Social amplification of risk

Answer 12

• Communication of a ‘risk event’ passes from sender through intermediate stations to the receiver - Each station views and understands information through a different lens - Risks mat be amplified or attuned.

Question 13

Cultural theory

Answer 13

Question 14

Cultural theory sheds light on

Answer 14

“Cultural theory sheds light on why we as individuals find it hard to agree on how to respond to a ‘mega’ risk like climate change” O’Riordan and Jordan (1999)

Question 15

Scientific consensus as opposed to social consensus

Answer 15

Today, there is no doubt that a scientific consensus exists on the issue of climate change
This assessment is endorsed by a large body of scientific agencies and by the vast majority of climatologists. The majority of research artiles published in referred scientific journals also support this scientific assessment.

Yet a social consensus does not exist

Hoffman (2012)

Question 16

American’s belief in climate change

Answer 16

Surveys show that American public’s belief in the science of climate change has mostly declined over the past 5 years, with large percentages of the population remaining skeptical of the science. Belief declined from 71% to 57% between April 2008 and October 2009.

Hoffman (2012)

Question 17

American climate culture wars

Answer 17

Acceptance of the scientific consensus is now seen as an alignment with liberal views consistent with other “cultural” issues that divide the country.

Hoffman, 2012

Question 18

Climate change is an existential challenge to our contemporary worldviews

Answer 18

The first facet is that we have to think of formerly benign, even beneficial, material in a new way – as a relative, not absolute, hazard.
This leads us to the second facet – We also have to change our place within the ecosystem – Have we as a species grown to sucgh numbers, and our technology grown to such power, that we can alter and manage the ecosystem on a planetary scale.
The third facet challenges us to consider new and perhaps unprecedented forms of global ethics and governance to address it.

Hoffman, 2012

Question 19

Positive engagment and political polarization

Answer 19

There are certain clusters of values which are strongly predictive of positive engagement with climate change that appear less congruent with sustained, long term engagement.
The degree of political polarization that has developed around climate change reflects he fact that disagreements about climate change are more likely to be about values than about the underlying science.

Corner et al (2014)

Question 20

One way positive engagment values are initiated

Answer 20

formal political ideologies, which are likely to be more or less favourable to particular climate policies.
Thus, a great deal of research has focused on understanding patterns of public perceptions derived primarily from values-based differences in political judgments about climate policies.

Corner et al (2014)

Question 21

Three elements to engagement at a public level

Answer 21

The paper defined engagement as an individual’s state, comprising three elements: cognitive, affective and behavioural

Lorenzoni et al (2007)

Question 22

Lorenzoni et al (2007) argues that

Answer 22

We argue that targeted and tailored information provision should be supported by wider structural change to enable citizens and communities to reduce their carbon dependency.

Question 23

Lorenzoni et al (2007) highlighted the need in he future for

Answer 23

the need for both targeted and tailored information provision, supported by enabling and equitable structural conditions, to foster public engagement.
Ultimately, there is a need for UK policies and governance structures to initiate a systemic shift to a low consumption paradigm in order to move people out of their comfort zone of carbon-intensive living.

Question 24

Limited carbon capability in decision making

Answer 24

We find that carbon is not a salient consideration in everyday decision-making, that misperceptions exist, and that the disparity between knowledge and bahviour would suggest certain barriers constrain the ability of even knowledgabe and motivated individuals to act.

Whitmarsh et al (2011)

Question 25

Whitmarsh et al (2011) sturctural and cultural barriers and limitied civic and community engagement

Answer 25

The low uptake of alternatives to driving and flying, for example, likely reflects structural and cultural barriers to behaviour change. While limited civic and community engagement point to a perceived lack of opportunities for, and efficiency of, individual particiapation in social change, or climate change mitigation

Question 26

Resonance theory

Answer 26

Resonance theory predicts that amplification is coupled with the successful transformation of concerns from one sector or even subsector into other sectors

If a risk can be credibly framed in the terms that resonate with the respective system it will become a topic in the discourse within this system.

Renn (2011)

Question 27

Climate change risks have been amplified because

Answer 27

The analysis in this article argues that first, climate change risks have been amplified because impacts resonate with concerns that are linked to each functional system of society.

Renn (2011)

Question 28

If the problem and solution trigger perceptions of risk amplification this leads to

Answer 28

both the problem and the solution trigger perceptions od risk amplification, the resulting action is often political parsalyiss.

Renn (2011)