Climate Change Behaviours & Engagement

Lead Researchers: Prof Nick Pidgeon, Dr Lorraine Whitmarsh

Professor Nick Pidgeon and Dr Lorraine Whitmarsh are involved in a number of projects concerning different aspects of people’s perception of, engagement with, and behaviour in response to, the issue of climate change.

This research includes a study into Public engagement with climate change and low-carbon lifestyles: examining public perceptions of, and behavioural responses to, climate change in flood-prone regions in the South of England. This research is particularly focussed on the roles of language and experience in how people understood and responded to climate change. Additional research has been undertaken into the perceived barriers to engaging with climate change with a focus on peoples’ motivations for, purchasing or not purchasing carbon offsets; the links between different environmentally-significant behaviours, including whether pro-environmental self-identity predicts spill-over effects between behaviours; and attitudes to climate change (particularly focussing on uncertainty and scepticism). This research involves data collection from UK residents via a postal survey and an online survey. This research work will be extended through experiments to investigate how uncertain information about climate change is perceived and interpreted, and how prior attitudes and values influence this interpretation.

Outputs from this research include an edited a book on Engaging the public with climate change: behaviour change and communication which was published by Earthscan in November 2010. This interdisciplinary volume features contributions from academics and practitioners involved in communicating climate change and encouraging low-carbon lifestyles; a literature review and workshop on breaking and creating habits for sustainability; and development of a segmentation model on environmental attitudes and behaviours in Wales; and a contribution to a major research synthesis on Public Attitudes to Environmental Change funded under the Living with Environmental Change cross-council research programme.