communicating climate change: science, values & politics

Communicating climate change: Science, values &

politics

Dr Adam CornerSchool of Psychology, Cardiff University

Climate Outreach & Information Network (COIN)

1 in 100 year event…4th time in 6 years!

Science, values & politics"It is just this Julia Slingo woman, who made this absurd statement, but their own official statement makes it clear there is no proven link whatsoever. There's been bad weather before.”

A difficult risk to perceive

•Not here/not now (temporally and spatially distant)

•Psychologically distant – not personally threatening; nothing to link actions and outcomes

•Emotional cues and social signals are absent (no risk amplification)

•Personal experience trumps statistical evidence

Uncertainty•To scientists: ‘degree of confidence’. To

everyone else: ignorance.

•Corner et al (2012) – uncertainty facilitates ‘biased assimilation’ of evidence

•Harris et al (2013) –English interpretations of IPCC phrase always higher than Chinese

Uncertainty as scepticism

•Actual denial of climate change or human causation relatively uncommon

•Uncertainty about perceived consensus (Lewandowsky et al, 2013), media exaggeration (Whitmarsh, 2011) & weather event attribution

•Patt & Weber (2104) – biggest uncertainty ‘us’ not the ‘climate’

Flooding

•Capstick et al (2013) – serious flooding across Wales in late 2012. 74% flooded vs. 65% non-flooded think CC happening now

•Spence & Pidgeon (2011) – higher concern and willingness to mitigate

Global cooling or climate chaos?

•Capstick & Pidgeon (2014) cold weather goes either way based on values and ideology

•Crucial importance of a narrative and elite cues (Brulle, 2012)

•Audience values and whether the story resonates with them critical

Self-transcendent values predict:

•Support for climate change policies

•Support for sustainable behaviour change

•Belief in/concern about climate change

Corner, Markowitz & Pidgeon (2014)

Implications for communication•Spillover: under what conditions does one

behavioural change lead to another?

•Evans et al (2013) – framing car sharing as environmental vs. financially beneficial affected rates of recycling

•The way that messages are framed is important

Partisan divides

Partisan divides

•Some conservative values threatened by climate change (gov regulation of industry or behaviour)

•Geoengineering (a free market solution?) reduces conservative scepticism about climate risks (Kahan et al, 2012)

•But geo aside (!), are there ways of communicating climate change that overcome the partisan divide?

• Political conservatism predicts climate change scepticism

• BUT no inherent reason why climate change and the values of centre-right should be incompatible.

• There is a vacuum where a coherent and compelling conservative narrative on climate change should be.

• This is bad news for everyone – left or right.

A new conversation with the centre-right

Four narratives

Protecting the ‘green & pleasant land’ (BEAUTY/NATURE/CONSERVATION)

Securing our energy future (SECURITY/SENSE OF BELONGING)

‘New environmentalism’ (FREEDOM/CREATIVITY)

The good life (HEALTH/RESPONSIBILITY)

Sustainable centre-right values?

Initial experimental evidence

•Mocker (2012) – Conservative voters viewed 1 of 2 video clips on decarbonising transport (N = 115)

•Community wellbeing vs. economic gain

•Community wellbeing = less fatalistic, more personal agency

Summary

•Values, ideology and social cues key to understanding climate change engagement

•Science moves quickly into values and politics

•Developing new narratives that bridge between different audience and values of a more sustainable society critical