The threat of Climate change not convincing enough

To get the public behind actions to alleviate the impact of climate change, it might be a reasonable approach to point out added benefits of behaviour change. Pointing out the extent of the problem does not suffice to convince people on the necessity of action. These are the findings of a multinational team of environmental- and social psychologists published today in the prestigious academic journal Nature: Climate Change.

Three Icelandic women are among the authors, Ragna Benedikta Garðarsdóttir, Associate Professor of social psychology at the University of Iceland, Nína María Saviolidis, who recently completed her master’s degree in environmental and natural resource studies at the University of Iceland, and Gró Einarsdóttir, doctoral candidate in community psychology at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden. Dr. Garðarsdóttir led the study in Iceland, and recruited Saviolidis whose thesis was based on this project. Einarsdóttir is part of a team of researchers at the University of Gothenburg leading the Swedish part of the study.

In many places around the world, climate change is losing ground to other issues in capturing the public’s attention and priority, according to the researchers. “Some people still don’t believe that climate change is caused by humans, and others are not at all concerned because they do not grasp the extent of the problem,” says dr. Garðarsdóttir, referring to how difficult it is to get people to change their lifestyles in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This led the research team to examine whether people would be motivated to shift towards more climate friendly behaviours if they believed such an effort would entail certain co-benefits. “We are examining whether there is increased motivation for people to change their behaviour if they believe that it will lead to other benefits; a kind of buy one get one free”, says Garðarsdóttir. Cleaner air and improved health turned out to be insufficient as motivations to act. On the other hand two types of benefits were strongly linked to action: promoting economic and scientific development, and helping foster a more caring community.

The study, headed by Dr. Paul Bain at the School of Psychology and Counselling at Queensland University of Technology, has taken three years to implement and is based on the responses of six thousand individuals from 24 countries.

The article in Nature: Climate Change is published shortly before the UN Climate Change Summit in Paris. At the summit the world’s leaders will discuss climate change action, and the study’s findings could prove useful in that work, according to Garðarsdóttir. “The conclusions of the study can be used for policy making that is more likely to spur people to action. If government policies and communications addressed these benefits, they are more likely to gain widespread public support.