Relationships between climate change perceptions and climate adaptation actions:policy support, information seeking, and behaviour

People are increasingly exposed to climate-related hazards, including floods, droughts, and vector-borne diseases. A broad repertoire of adaptation actions is needed to adapt to these various hazards. It is therefore important to identify general psychological antecedents that motivate people to engage in many different adaptation actions, in response to different hazards, and in different contexts. We examined if people’s climate change perceptions act as such general antecedents. Questionnaire studies in the Netherlands (n = 3,546) and the UK (n = 803) revealed that the more people perceive climate change as real, human-caused, and having negative consequences, the more likely they are to support adaptation policy and to seek information about local climate impacts and ways to adapt. These relationships were stronger and more consistent when the information and policies were introduced as measures to adapt to risks of climate change specifically. However, the three types of climate change perceptions were inconsistently associated with intentions to implement adaptation behaviours (e.g. installing a green roof). This suggests that climate change perceptions can be an important gateway for adaptation actions, especially policy support and information seeking, but that it may be necessary to address additional barriers in order to fully harness the potential of climate change perceptions to promote widespread adaptation behaviour

Reporting on the Seminar - Risk interpretation and action (RIA): Decision making under conditions of uncertainty

The paper reports on the World Social Science (WSS) Fellows seminar on Risk Interpretation and Action (RIA), undertaken in New Zealand in December, 2013. This seminar was coordinated by the WSS Fellows program of the International Social Science Council (ISSC), the RIA working group of the Integrated Research on Disaster Risk (IRDR) program, the IRDR International Center of Excellence Taipei, the International START Secretariat and the Royal Society of New Zealand. Twenty-five early career researchers from around the world were selected to review the RIA framework under the theme of \u27decision-making under conditions of uncertainty\u27, and develop novel theoretical approaches to respond to and improve this framework. Six working groups emerged during the seminar: 1. the assessment of water-related risks in megacities; 2. rethinking risk communication; 3. the embodiment of uncertainty; 4. communication in resettlement and reconstruction phases; 5. the integration of indigenous knowledge in disaster risk reduction; and 6. multi-scale policy implementation for natural hazard risk reduction. This article documents the seminar and initial outcomes from the six groups organized; and concludes with the collective views of the participants on the RIA framework

The influence of values on evaluations of energy alternatives

Although both promoted as sustainable, nuclear and renewable energy elicit different evaluations in people. People expect (whether true or not) different implications for the environment and for consumers' resources from these energy alternatives. But what factors define the perceived importance of these environmental and individual consequences, and will this affect people's attitudes toward energy alternatives? Do these factors also influence perceptions of consequences of energy alternatives? The authors propose that people's biospheric (e.g. valuing nature) and egoistic (e.g. valuing wealth) values affect evaluations of energy alternatives in three important ways. First, as expected, the results showed that the stronger their egoistic values, the more important people find individual consequences of energy alternatives, whereas the stronger their biospheric values, the more important they find environmental consequences. Second, this indeed translated into attitudes: the stronger their egoistic values, the more people favored nuclear energy and the less they favored renewable energy, whereas the opposite was found for biospheric values. Third, values colored the perceptions of consequences. Specifically, whether people ascribed negative or positive consequences to energy alternatives aligned with their value-based attitudes toward these alternatives. The results were robust despite variations in energy alternatives and the methods used. Practical implications are provided. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

An integrated framework for encouraging pro-environmental behaviour: The role of values, situational factors and goals

Many environmental behaviours involve a conflict between hedonic and gain goals versus normative goals; people often need to incur some costs to benefit the environment. Based on this assumption, we propose an integrated theoretical framework for understanding behaviour change that identifies two routes to encourage pro-environmental behaviour. First, the conflict between goals can be reduced by decreasing the (hedonic and gain) costs of pro-environmental choices. Although this route is important when pro-environmental choices are very costly, it may not result in sustained pro-environmental actions. Second, normative goals can be strengthened. This strategy may encourage pro-environmental actions, even when it is somewhat costly. We propose that the strength of normative goals depends on values and situational factors that influence the accessibility of these values. We discuss theoretical implications of our reasoning, and indicate how the integrated framework adopted in this paper may advance theory development and environmental policy making. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

Development and validation of a climate change perceptions scale

People's perceptions of climate change have been of great interest for understanding how people respond to climate change. Yet, studies differ greatly in how they assess climate change perceptions, which makes it difficult to compare and integrate findings. The aim of this paper is to develop and validate a scale to reliably measure people's climate change perceptions. We define climate change perceptions as people's perceptions of the reality and causes of climate change, and the perceived valence, spatial distance, and temporal distance of consequences of climate change. To measure these perceptions, an item pool was developed based on a literature search and expert review. The resulting scale was tested in three empirical studies conducted in the US and the Netherlands, which supported the factor structure; reliability; convergent, predictive, and discriminant validity; and measurement invariance of the scale. Implications for future research are discussed

Energy Efficiency Choices and Residential Sector: Observable Behaviors and Valuation Models

Over the last decade, households’ preferences about energy efficiency measures in the residential sector have been the focus of a growing body research employing models based on revealed and stated preferences. Analysis of households’ energy consumption and demand elasticities were carried out before with the intent to forecast the potential of energy efficiency programs, but the recent concerns about climate change have drawn attention to the causes of this problem. As a result, the residential and renewable energy sectors have become strategic for the human being’s future. Different retrofit measures and technical solutions are now available for the new buildings, but the existing residential stock is more difficult to improve. More specifically, this implies the investment decision of heterogeneous groups of homeowners and landlords who differ in terms of the characteristics of their assets, their financial possibilities and time preferences. Valuation models have helped to forecast the demand of both market and public goods. Based on different approaches and theories, these applications have opened new avenues of research, but leaving some questions unanswered. This work tries to take stock of a debate that is still open by comparing experiments based on revealed and stated preferences in this specific field