Perceptions of climate change and willingness to save energy related to flood experience
A. Spence1*,W. Poortinga2, C. Butler3 and N. F. Pidgeon3*
1Horizon Digital Economy Research/School of Psychology, University of Nottingham, Nottingham NG7 2TU, UK.
2Welsh School of Architecture/School of Psychology, Cardiff University, Cardiff CF10 3AT, UK.
3Understanding Risk Research Group, School of Psychology, Cardiff University, Cardiff CF10 3AT, UK.
*e-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. ; This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .
One of the reasons that people may not take action to mitigate climate change is that they lack first-hand experience of its potential consequences. From this perspective, individuals who have direct experience of phenomena that may be linked to climate change would be more likely to be concerned by the issue and thus more inclined to undertake sustainable behaviours. So far, the evidence available to test this hypothesis is limited, and in part contradictory1–4. Here we use national survey data collected from 1,822 individuals across the UK in 2010, to examine the links between direct flooding experience, perceptions of climate change and preparedness to reduce energy use. We show that those who report experience of flooding express more concern over climate change, see it as less uncertain and feel more confident that their actions will have an effect on climate change. Importantly, these perceptual differences also translate into a greater willingness to save energy to mitigate climate change. Highlighting links between localweather events and climate change is therefore likely to be a useful strategy for increasing concern and action.
Climate change targets for reductions in greenhouse-gas emissions have now been instituted across many developed and developing nations. Research demonstrates that these targets are unlikely to be met without major changes in societal structures that will necessarily require engagement of the wider public, for example to achieve more efficient or reduced energy use5,6. Although for many years a majority of individuals have expressed concern about climate change in the UK, as elsewhere, an examination of polling data in recent years actually reveals a small decline in concern, alongside an increase in scepticism regarding its seriousness and anthropogenic causes79. Indeed, public perceptions typically reflect a much lower concern about climate change than is expressed by climate scientists, potentially owing, in part, to the public's lack of personal experience with climate impacts10,11. Psychological research indicates that one reason for a lack of concern about climate change may be the perception that it is a distant issue. Lay people tend to perceive areas that are vulnerable to climate change impacts as geographically distantat least in Western countries12,13. This relates to research within the domain of embodied social cognition that links distance, and in particular spatial distance, with the dampening of reactions and judgements14.
These observations logically lead to the idea that highlighting the links between local events and climate change may encourage people to engage with the issue15 and to take action to mitigate potential impacts. Indeed, personal experience is thought to be a key driver of risk perceptions, and the perceived likelihood of a risk is found to increase if it has recently been experienced or can readily be imagined16. Relating local events to climate change may also have perceptual and behavioural impacts to the extent that these help to make the issues less distant and more tangible. It might be expected that experiencing some kind of (generally negative) event that could be attributed to climate change would leave people feeling helpless. However, goal-setting theory17 highlights the benefits of setting concrete, specific goals in increasing instrumentality (that is, an individual's belief that actions will lead to outcomes) and the likelihood of subsequent action being taken. In line with this, if people are better able to relate to the potential consequences of climate change impacts, they may also be more likely to feel that their behaviour can lead to changes in these impacts.
Climate change itself is not directly observable by individuals, it being a reference to average climate conditions over a long period of time rather than that observed on a daily or seasonal basis, and is perhaps really understood only through mathematical models and scientific measurement18. However, given that seasonal events and the weather are the primary means by which individuals can experience and observe the climate, it is understandable that this is a means by which people may judge climate change. Note that phenological research (the recording of seasonal events), for example the early arrival of swifts in summer in the UK, and indigenous observations within key areas, for example reduction in numbers of seals within Arctic regions, have proved useful in verifying, clarifying and documenting impacts of climate change19.
Major extremes in weather, and ecosystem changes, are already being experienced across multiple geographical regions (for example, droughts in Uganda and Sudan) and are expected to increase in frequency and severity as a result of climate change20. In particular, for many places including the UK, it is observed that periods of intense rainfall have increased in frequency over the past 4060 years, resulting in a greater number of floods, and indeed recent research has explicitly linked anthropogenic greenhouse-gas emissions to an increase in flood risk in England and Wales21. It is important to acknowledge that climate change predictions highlight the increasing risk of particular weather patterns and events22. Hence, attributing any one event to climate change is highly complex, and as a consequence it is particularly difficult for communicators or the public to link actual experiences with the more abstract notions of risk derived from climate science. On this issue, some commentators have suggested that the substantial changes to the composition of the world's atmosphere mean that it is perhaps now more appropriate to discuss weather events in terms of hybrid weather; that is, as the result of a new co produced naturalcultural climate system23.
NATURE CLIMATE CHANGE DOI: 10.1038/NCLIMATE1059 LETTERS
