Steg, L. (2018) Limiting climate change requires research on climate action. Nature Clamate Change, 8. pp. 759-761.
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Abstract
What percentage of Europeans believes that climate change is not happening, and that it is not caused by human action? When I pose this question in my talks, most scientists and practitioners come up with percentages well above 20%, and in many cases even around 50%. Yet the eighth round of the European Social Survey (ESS8)1 conducted in 2016–2017 indicates that, on average, only 2.3% of the respondents in the 23 participating countries (22 in Europe and Israel) believe that the world’s climate is definitely not changing, and only 4.5% believe that the climate is probably not changing (Fig. 1). The largest proportion of true climate deniers was found in the Russian Federation, where 9.7% believe the climate is definitely not changing. Similarly, only 1.9% of ESS respondents who do not deny climate change believe that climate change is entirely caused by natural processes (with again the highest proportion, but still only 5.7%, in the Russian Federation), and only 6.9% believe it is mainly caused by natural processes (Fig. 2). Despite this, people generally do not consistently engage in actions that would reduce climate change2,3. Thus, the main challenge is not that many people do not believe in the reality and anthropogenic origins of climate change, but that these beliefs do not persistently translate into climate mitigation actions4. The latter is particularly troublesome, as recent integrated assessment modelling studies reveal that rapid and wide-ranging changes in individual climate mitigation actions are needed to limit climate change to 1.5 °C, particularly if we do not want to employ negative-emissions technologies that are associated with significant limitations and uncertainties5,6. It is therefore critical to focus our research efforts on understanding which factors and strategies encourage rapid and significant climate mitigation actions across the world.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | Climate change |
| Author Affiliation: | Faculty of Behavioural and Social Sciences, Department of Psychology, University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands |
| Subjects: | Atmosperic Science > Climatology |
| Divisions: | General |
| Depositing User: | Mr T L Gautham |
| Date Deposited: | 24 Sep 2018 04:46 |
| Last Modified: | 24 Sep 2018 04:46 |
| URI: | http://eprints.icrisat.ac.in/id/eprint/15597 |
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