Communicating carbon removal

Removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere is “unavoidable” if net zero emissions are to be achieved, and is fast rising up the climate policy agenda. Research, development, demonstration, and deployment of various methods has begun, but technical advances alone will not guarantee a role for them in tackling climate change. For those engrossed in carbon removal debates, it is easy to forget that most people have never heard of these strategies. Public perception of carbon removal is therefore particularly sensitive to framings—the ways in which scientists, entrepreneurs, activists, politicians, the media, and others choose to organize and communicate it. In this perspective, we highlight four aspects of carbon removal for which their framing will play a decisive role in whether—and how—different methods are taken forward. First, the use of analogies can be helpful in guiding mental models, but can also inadvertently imply processes or outcomes that do not apply in the new example. Second, a taxonomic split between “nature-based” and “technological” methods threatens to divert attention from the actual qualities of different methods and constrain our policy options. Third, people are likely to overestimate the emissions-reduction potential of carbon removal, but this misperception can be corrected. Fourth, communications overlook the social arrangements for carbon removal and the alternative trajectories that implementation may take. We end by offering key recommendations for how we can communicate carbon removal more responsibly

Industry‐Dominated Science Advisory Boards Are Perceived To Be Legitimate…But Only When They Recommend More Stringent Risk Management Policies

In 2017, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was criticized for two controversial directives that restricted the eligibility of academic scientists to serve on the agency’s key science advisory boards (SABs). The EPA portrayed these directives as necessary to ensure the integrity of the SAB. Critics portrayed them as a tactic by the agency to advance a more industry‐friendly deregulatory agenda. With this backdrop, this research examined board composition and its effect on the perceived legitimacy of risk management recommendations by the SAB. In an experiment, we presented participants with hypothetical EPA SABs composed of different proportions of academic and industry scientists. We then asked participants to rate their satisfaction with, and the legitimacy of, these boards in light of their decisions in scenarios based on actual EPA SAB deliberations. Participants perceived higher levels of satisfaction and legitimacy when SABs made more stringent risk management recommendations. While SABs dominated by industry scientists were perceived to be more strongly motivated to protect business interests, we found no effect of board composition on perceptions of satisfaction and legitimacy. These results are consistent with prior research on decision quality that suggests people use normative outcomes as a heuristic for assessing the quality of deliberations. Moreover, these results suggest that members of the public are supportive of federal SABs regardless of their composition, but only if they take actions that are consistent with normative expectations.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/163630/2/risa13540.pdfhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/163630/1/risa13540_am.pd

From moral hazard to risk-response feedback

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change assessments (IPCC) Special Report on 1.5 °C of global warming is clear. Nearly all pathways that hold global warming well below 2 °C involve carbon removal (IPCC, 2015). In addition, solar geoengineering is being considered as a potential tool to offset warming, especially to limit temperature until negative emissions technologies are sufficiently matured (MacMartin et al., 2018). Despite this, there has been a reluctance to embrace carbon removal and solar geoengineering, partly due to the perception that these technologies represent what is widely termed a “moral hazard”: that geoengineering will prevent people from developing the will to change their personal consumption and push for changes in infrastructure (Robock et al., 2010), erode political will for emissions cuts (Keith, 2007), or otherwise stimulate increased carbon emissions at the social-system level of analysis (Bunzl, 2008). These debates over carbon removal and geoengineering echo earlier ones over climate adaptation. We argue that debates over “moral hazard” in many areas of climate policy are unhelpful and misleading. We also propose an alternative framework for dealing with the tradeoffs that motivate the appeal to “moral hazard,” which we call “risk-response feedback.

The Promise and Limitations of Using Analogies to Improve Decision-Relevant Understanding of Climate Change

<div><p>To make informed choices about how to address climate change, members of the public must develop ways to consider established facts of climate science and the uncertainties about its future trajectories, in addition to the risks attendant to various responses, including non-response, to climate change. One method suggested for educating the public about these issues is the use of simple mental models, or analogies comparing climate change to familiar domains such as medical decision making, disaster preparedness, or courtroom trials. Two studies were conducted using online participants in the U.S.A. to test the use of analogies to highlight seven key decision-relevant elements of climate change, including uncertainties about when and where serious damage may occur, its unprecedented and progressive nature, and tradeoffs in limiting climate change. An internal meta-analysis was then conducted to estimate overall effect sizes across the two studies. Analogies were not found to inform knowledge about climate literacy facts. However, results suggested that people found the medical analogy helpful and that it led people—especially political conservatives—to better recognize several decision-relevant attributes of climate change. These effects were weak, perhaps reflecting a well-documented and overwhelming effect of political ideology on climate change communication and education efforts in the U.S.A. The potential of analogies and similar education tools to improve understanding and communication in a polarized political environment are discussed.</p></div

Putting Your Money Where Your Mouth Is: An Experimental Test of Pro-Environmental Spillover From Reducing Meat Consumption to Monetary Donations

Psychological studies testing behavioral spillover—the notion that behavior change resulting from an intervention affects subsequent similar behaviors—has resulted in conflicting findings in the environmental domain. This study sought to further demarcate the spillover process by asking participants to engage in a difficult first pro-environmental behavior, reducing red meat consumption, for either health or environmental reasons. Evidence of spillover was tested via a subsequent monetary donation to an environmental organization. While there was no evidence of spillover for those in the green behavior condition, those in the health behavior condition were less likely to donate relative to controls. There was evidence that pro-environmental behavior led to an increase in environmental concern. In turn, environmental concern was associated with an increased likelihood of donating. Environmental concern may, thus, be one route to positive spillover in some subsets of the population

Study 1: Decision-relevant elements of climate change by political orientation, condition, and their interaction.

<p>Study 1: Decision-relevant elements of climate change by political orientation, condition, and their interaction.</p

Climate literacy measures by political orientation, condition, and their interaction.

<p>Climate literacy measures by political orientation, condition, and their interaction.</p

Internal meta-analysis of Studies 1 and 2.

<p>Main effects of medical analogy (vs control) predicting decision-relevant beliefs, interactions of medical analogy and political ideology, and simple slopes for conservatives and liberals of assignment to the medical analogy condition.</p

Means and standard errors of dependent measures by condition for Study 1 and Study 2.

<p>Means and standard errors of dependent measures by condition for Study 1 and Study 2.</p

Decision-relevant outcomes by ideology and assignment to MA condition for Study 1 and Study 2.

<p>Decision-relevant outcomes by ideology and assignment to MA condition for Study 1 and Study 2.</p