The role of beliefs, expectations and values for decision-making in response to climate change

Effective support for people´s responses to climate change requires knowledge on the gap between physical climate change science and practices where the responses are realized. Studies have shown that individuals´ strong belief in local impacts of climate change is an important driver of climate change response (e.g. Blennow et al. 2012). Arguably this belief can be fortified by the belief that one has experienced the local impacts of climate change. However, a recent study shows that while responses to climate change correlate positively with the strength of belief that one has experienced negative local impacts of climate change, experience of positive local climate change impacts can either promote or inhibit the response (Blennow and Persson 2021). If the intention is adaptation to the impacts of climate change, positive experiences of climate change promote the response but if the intention is climate change mitigation, experience of positive impacts of climate change inhibit the response.

While strong belief in the local impacts of climate change is a prerequisite of climate change response, for adaptation, the agent also needs detailed knowledge of the causal links between climate change and the negative and positive values of expected climate change related impacts (Blennow et al. 2020). Decision-making in favor of adaptation to climate change generally increases with the absolute value of the net of positive and negative expected impacts in the absence of ‘tipping point’ behavior (Persson et al. 2020; Blennow et al. 2020). Tipping point behaviour occurs when adaptation is not pursued in spite of the strongly negative or positive net value of expected climate change impacts. For mitigation, moreover, it is important that the net value of expected impacts is negative and not positive (Blennow and Persson 2021). We discuss the implications of the results for policies aiming at supporting responses to climate change, such as communications that help the receiver subjectively attribute the causes of an event to climate change.

 

References

Blennow, K. Persson, J., 2021. To Mitigate or Adapt? Explaining Why Citizens Responding to Climate Change Favour the Former. Land, 10, 240. https://doi.org/10.3390/land10030240

Blennow, K., Persson, J., Tomé, M., & Hanewinkel, M., 2012. Climate change: believing and seeing implies adapting. PLOS ONE, 7(11):e50181. http://dx.plos.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0050182

Blennow, K. Persson, J., Gonçalves, L.M.S., Borys, A., Dutcă, I., Hynynen, J., Janeczko, E., Lyubenova, M., Merganič, J., Merganiová, K., Peltoniemi, M., Petr, M., Reboredo, F., Vacchiano, G., Reyer, C.P.O., 2020. The role of beliefs, expectations and values in decision-making favoring climate change adaptation – implications for communications with European forest professionals. Environmental Research Letters,15: 114061.  /doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/abc2fa

Persson, J., Blennow, K., Gonçalves, L.M.S., Borys, A., Dutca, I., Hynynen, J., Janeczko, E., Lyubenova, M., Martel, S., Merganic, J., Merganicova, K., Peltoniemi, M., Petr, M., Reboredo, F., Vacchiano, G., Reyer, C.P.O., 2020. No polarization – expected values of climate change impacts among European forest professionals and scientists. Sustainability, 12, 2659; doi:10.3390/su12072659