The Hogg Eco-Anxiety Scale: Development and validation of a multidimensional scale

Anxiety relating to a multitude of ecological crises, or eco-anxiety, is a subject of growing research significance. We used a multi-study mixed-methods design to explore eco-anxiety in Australia and New Zealand, validating a new eco-anxiety scale. In Study One, we developed and tested a 7-item eco-anxiety scale (n = 334), finding that this captured some, but not all, experiences of eco-anxiety. We found that people were anxious about a range of environmental conditions and their personal negative impact on the planet. Notably, people’s anxiety about different environmental conditions (e.g., climate change, environmental degradation, pollution) were interconnected, lending support for the existence of eco-anxiety (a broader construct that encompasses climate change anxiety). These results informed further scale development in Study Two. Exploratory (n = 365) and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (n = 370) supported a final 13-item scale that captured four dimensions of eco-anxiety: affective symptoms, rumination, behavioural symptoms, and anxiety about one’s negative impact on the planet, which were each distinct from stress, anxiety and depression. A further longitudinal sample (n = 189) established the stability of these factors across time. Findings support eco-anxiety as a quantifiable psychological experience, reliably measured using our 13-item eco-anxiety scale, and differentiated from mental health outcomes.     

A cautionary note about messages of hope: Focusing on progress in reducing carbon emissions weakens mitigation motivation

For the first time this millennium, growth in carbon emissions has slowed. Indeed, the year 2014 was the first time in 40 years that the planet saw zero growth in emissions. We examine whether this message of progress can be effective in motivating people to engage in mitigation efforts. This question dovetails with commentary suggesting that gloomy messages about climate change risk fatiguing the population, and that alternative approaches are necessary. It is also informed by work suggesting that hope is a motivating force in terms of engaging in collective action and social change. Study 1 (N = 574) showed that negative emotions were strongly related to mitigation motivation and feelings of efficacy, but hope-related emotions had a much weaker relationship with these constructs. In the main experiment (Study 2: N = 431) participants read an optimistic, pessimistic, or neutral message about the rate of progress in reducing global carbon emissions. Relative to the pessimistic message, the optimistic message reduced participants’ sense that climate change represented a risk to them, and the associated feelings of distress. Consequently, the optimistic message was less successful in increasing mitigation motivation than the pessimistic message. In sum, predictions that the optimistic message would increase efficacy did not transpire; concerns that the optimistic message would increase complacency did transpire. Recent progress in curbing global carbon emissions is welcome, but we found no evidence that messages focusing on this progress constitute an effective communication strategy.     

Guilty pleasures: Moral licensing in climate-related behavior

This research provides evidence for moral-licensing effects in climate-related behavior. We recruited individuals who had not travelled by airplane for private reasons during the past two years (Study 1, n = 854) or had invested in an energetic refurbishment of their homes (Study 2, n = 596) and investigated feelings and intentions toward two different problematic behaviors, namely meat consumption (Study 1) and air travel (Study 2). In a paradigm where the order of topics in the survey was varied systematically, being reminded of past climate-friendly behavior decreased the discomfort about ongoing problematic climate-related behavior in another domain (Study 1) and reduced the motivation to change the latter behavior or to mitigate its consequences (Study 2). Strength and direction of the effect were moderated by factors such as concern about climate protection, personal relevance of the problematic behavior, as well as time since and pride about the climate-friendly behavior.     

Climate visuals: A mixed methods investigation of public perceptions of climate images in three countries

Imagery plays a central role in climate change communication. But whereas research on the verbal communication of climate change has proliferated, far fewer studies have focused on visual communication. Correspondingly, relatively little is known about how to effectively engage the public using the visual medium. The current research is the first mixed methods, cross-national investigation of public perceptions of climate images, with a focus on photographic climate change imagery. Four structured discussion groups in the UK and Germany (N = 32) and an international survey with an embedded experiment in the UK, Germany and the US (N = 3014) were conducted to examine how different types of climate change imagery were evaluated. The qualitative research pointed to the importance of the perceived authenticity and credibility of the human subjects in climate images, as well as widespread negativity towards images depicting protests and demonstrations. Images of climate ‘solutions’ produced positive emotional responses in the survey and were less polarizing for climate change skeptics, but they were also the least motivating of action. Familiar climate images (such as a polar bear on melting ice) were easily understood in the survey (and evaluated positively as a consequence) but viewed with cynicism in discussion groups. We present a detailed discussion of these and other key findings in this paper and describe a novel application of the data through an online image library for practitioners which accompanies the research (www.climatevisuals.org).     

Climate change action as a project of identity: Eight meta-analyses

Identity can improve our understanding of personal climate action, particularly when climate action becomes an expression of a person’s self. However, it is unclear which kind of self or identity is most relevant. Building on a comprehensive series of eight meta-analyses (using data from 188 published articles, N = 414,282 participants) this research systematically compares how strongly climate-friendly intentions and behaviors are associated with place identity, personal connectedness to nature, environmental self-identity (i.e., personal self-definition as a pro-environmentally acting person), and social identity (i.e., identification with social groups). Results suggest robust, medium-sized to strong links of both pro-environmental intentions and behaviors to people’s nature connectedness (r = 0.44/0.52), environmental self-identity (r = 0.62/0.56), and identification with groups considered to support climate-friendly behavior (r = 0.48/0.51), but markedly weaker effects for identification with groups which are unrelated to environmental topics (r = 0.30/0.15) and for place identity (r = 0.18/0.32). Implications for policy interventions and psychological theory are discussed.     

The strengths and weaknesses of future visioning approaches for climate change adaptation: A review

Adaptation to climate change is about planning for the future while responding to current pressures and challenges. Adaptation scientists are increasingly using future visioning exercises embedded in co-production and co-development techniques to assist stakeholders in imagining futures in a changing climate. Even if these exercises are growing in popularity, surprisingly little scrutiny has been placed on understanding the fundamental assumptions and choices in scenario approaches, timeframes, scales, or methods, and whether they result in meaningful changes in how adaptation is being thought about. Here, we unpack key insights and experiences across 62 case studies that specifically report on using future visioning exercises to engage stakeholders in climate change adaptation. We focus on three key areas: 1) Stakeholder diversity and scales; 2) Tools, methods, and data, and 3) Practical constraints, enablers, and outcomes. Our results show that most studies focus on the regional scale (n = 32; 52%), involve mainly formal decision makers and employ vast array of different methods, tools, and data. Interestingly, most exercises adopt either predictive (what will happen) and explorative (what could happen) scenarios while only a fraction use the more normative (what should happen) scenarios that could enable more transformative thinking. Reported positive outcomes include demonstrated increases in climate change literacy and support for climate change adaptation planning. Unintended and unexpected outcomes include increased anxiety in cases where introduced timeframes go beyond an individual’s expected life span and decreased perceived necessity for undertaking adaptation at all. Key agreed factors that underpin co-production and equal representation, such as gender, age, and diversity, are not well reported, and most case studies do not use reflective processes to harness participant feedback that could enable more robust methodology development. This is a missed opportunity in developing a more fundamental understanding of how these exercises can effectively shift individual and collective mindsets and advance the inclusion of different viewpoints as a pathway for more equitable and just climate adaptation.     

The future that may (or may not) come: How framing changes responses to uncertainty in climate change communications

Communicating possible effects of climate change inevitably involves uncertainty. Because people are generally averse to uncertainty, this activity has the potential to undermine effective action more than stimulate it. The present research considered how framing climate change predictions differently might moderate the tendency for uncertainty to undermine individual action. Two studies (Ns = 88 and 120) show that higher uncertainty combined with a negative frame (highlighting possible losses) decreased individual intentions to behave environmentally. However when higher uncertainty was combined with a positive frame (highlighting the possibility of losses not materializing) this produced stronger intentions to act. Study 2 revealed that these effects of uncertainty were mediated through feelings of efficacy. These results suggest that uncertainty is not an inevitable barrier to action, provided communicators frame climate change messages in ways that trigger caution in the face of uncertainty.     

The ‘co’ in co-production of climate action: Challenging boundaries within and between science,policy and practice

Effective action taken against climate change must find ways to unite scientific and practice-based knowledges associated with the various stakeholders who see themselves as invested in the global delivery of climate governance. Political decision-makers, climate scientists and practitioners approach this challenge from what are often radically different perspectives and experiences. While considerable work has been done to develop the idea of ‘co-production’ in the development of climate action outputs, questions remain over how to best unite the contrasting epistemological traditions and norms associated with different stakeholders. Drawing on the existing literatures on climate action co-production and from translational perspectives on the science-policy interface, in this paper we develop the concept of ‘boundary agency’. Defining this as the agency ‘possessed’ when willing and able to translate between different epistemological communities invested in a similar policy and governance challenge such as climate change, we offer it as a useful means to reflect on participants’ understanding of the ‘co’ in co-production. This is in contrast to the more established (often academic-led) focus on what it is that is being produced by co-production processes. We draw from two complementary empirical studies, which explicitly encouraged i) engagement and ii) reflection on cross-boundary co-production between climate action stakeholders from different backgrounds. Reflecting on the two studies, we discuss the benefits of (and barriers to) encouraging more active and sustained engagement between climate action stakeholders so as to try to actively blur the boundaries between science and policy and, in doing so, invent new epistemological communities of practice.     

Considering attitudinal uncertainty in the climate change skepticism continuum

In this paper we present an empirically driven language to discuss climate change skepticism. We conceptualize skeptic/skepticism as an umbrella term that includes those who actively reject climate science and those who are uncertain about climate change. We propose four categories for better empirical analysis of climate skepticism: epistemic deniers, epistemic doubters (borrowing from Capstick and Pidgeon 2014), attribution deniers, and attribution doubters (borrowing from Rahmstorf 2004). Using a unique dataset of surveys (n = 1000) and interviews (n = 33) with residents of the U.S. Pacific Northwest who are skeptical about climate change, we compare those four groups across several predictors and demographic variables (age, race, gender, political ideology, religiosity, income, education, and level of trust in science) and outcome variables (environmental concern, policy support, and conspiracy ideation (adherence to the belief that climate change is a “hoax”). We demonstrate the importance of considering attitudinal uncertainty in the analysis of climate skepticism by providing evidence for the presence of a continuum of thought wherein epistemic deniers and attribution doubters make up the two ends of a continuum with more complicated distinctions between epistemic doubters and attribution deniers.     

How you talk about climate change matters: A communication network perspective on epistemic skepticism and belief strength

A population’s attitudes toward climate change can strongly influence governmental policies as well as community and individual climate-related behaviors. These attitudes have been explained with a variety of factors, including cultural worldviews, environmental attitudes, political ideology, knowledge of climate change, severe weather exposure, and sociodemographic characteristics. These studies typically assume an individual forms attitudes on the basis of preexisting values or beliefs and do not account for dynamic social interaction as a source of influence. This study introduces a network perspective that accounts for the social embeddedness of individuals, using network variables to predict climate attitudes, including homophily, network strength, attitude diversity, centrality, network size, and network valence. An exploratory factor analysis identified two distinct attitudinal dimensions: climate change epistemic skepticism and belief strength. Using egocentric data from a nationally representative survey collected in 2011, this study found that network variables were significant in predicting both climate attitude dimensions; hierarchical regression analyses accounting for other known predictors found two different predictive models for epistemic skepticism and belief strength. Homophily, network strength, attitude diversity, and network valence predicted epistemic skepticism (R²_change = 4.8%), while centrality and network strength predicted belief strength (R²_change = 8.9%). The analyses also found support for cultural factors as significant predictors of climate attitudes, particularly Christianity and cultural worldviews. The results of this study suggest that interpersonal influence through communication networks is a promising avenue for continued research, and should be included in studies of climate attitude formation and change.     

Climate skepticism decreases when the planet gets hotter and conservative support wanes

Identifying historical patterns of fluctuation in climate change skepticism guides researchers, policy makers, and science communicators in efforts to catalyze change in the future. We analyzed data from 25 nationally representative polls collected in Australia from 2009 to 2019 (N = 20,655). Although it remains concerningly high, climate skepticism trended down in that 10-year period, particularly among conservatives. Multilevel analyses identified two variables that stood out as being relevant in explaining that trajectory. First, climate change skepticism was positively associated with support for conservative political parties in national polls. Second, climate change skepticism was negatively associated with the annual global temperatures the previous year. There was little evidence that climate change beliefs were associated with economic variables or with seasonal variations in temperature. Furthermore, there was only weak evidence that climate change beliefs were associated with national temperatures. This suggests that global temperatures in the previous year are impactful because of their informational value (as a communication heuristic for the urgency and immediacy of climate change) more so than for their experiential value (in the sense of people actually experiencing warmer weather). Importantly, the effect of previous global temperature was particularly pronounced among those with the strongest levels of skepticism: political conservatives. This suggests that rising global annual temperatures have the power to update beliefs among those most in need of converting to the climate cause.     

OK Boomer: A decade of generational differences in feelings about climate change

The emergence of concern about and evidence of climate change has been argued to create a cultural milieu unique to the Millennial generation (born between 1981 and 1996) and iGeneration (aka iGens or Generation Z born after 1997). The present research tested a) claims of unique angst about climate change among younger versus older generations, b) growing generational discrepancies over time in emotions about climate change, c) generational differences for several emotions about climate change, and d) the implications of these emotions for motivating people to discuss climate change with others, potentially aiding coping with climate change and facilitating action to address climate change. Survey data gathered from 2010 to 2019 of a representative sample of United States residents (N = 22,468) document greater increases in worry about climate change and, to a lesser degree, anger and guilt about climate change, within the two youngest generations relative to changes among Generation X, Baby Boomers, and the Silent and Greatest Generations. Although generational differences were small and suggest overstatements of unique effects for younger generations, increases in younger generations’ emotions transform into the two youngest generations reporting the strongest emotions in 2019. Over ten years, these differential shifts in emotions explain more substantial increases in the frequency of discussing climate in the youngest generations.     

Is hope good for motivating collective action in the context of climate change? Differentiating hope’s emotion- and problem-focused coping functions

Climate change may be the most fundamental collective action problem of all time. To solve it through collective action, collective motivation is required. Yet, given the complexity and scale of the collective problem, it may be difficult for individuals to experience such motivation. Intriguingly, the experience of hope may increase collective motivation and action. We offer an integrative coping perspective on hope and collective action in the context of climate change. It explains how hope stimulates individuals’ collective motivation to act against climate change (serving a problem-focused coping function), or fails to do so (serving an emotion-focused coping function). Testing these competing hypotheses, we conducted three studies that experimentally manipulated a core antecedent of hope (i.e., the perceived possibility of change) among US participants (total N = 1020). Across the board, this manipulation increased individuals’ hope but not their collective motivation and action. Furthermore, collective motivation predicted collective action intentions across all three studies. Hoping thus seems to serve an emotion-focused coping function and hence may not increase the collective motivation required for collective action in the context of climate change.     

Empirical testing of the visualizations of climate change mitigation scenarios with citizens: A comparison among Germany,Poland, and France

While scenarios are used extensively for communication about climate change mitigation, little is known about the interpretation of these scenarios by citizens. We conducted a cross-country empirical evaluation of scenario visualizations for global mitigation, using online surveys in Germany (N = 379), Poland (N = 223), and France (N = 225). Each respondent received visualizations of the required changes in global carbon dioxide emissions and composition of electricity supply (fossil fuels, nuclear, and renewable sources) for limiting global warming to 1.5 °C. We evaluated the effects of respondents’ demographics, prior beliefs, numeracy, and graph literacy on the reading accuracy and knowledge gains from the visualizations. We also included an experimental between-groups design on visualization format, where four groups received different graph formats (steep or gradual graphs with depictions of uncertainty ranges or scenario ensembles) and the fifth group received a table. Results showed that higher education level, numeracy, and graph literacy increased reading accuracy in all countries, while age reduced them. Respondents with prior beliefs about climate change mitigation that matched the information in the visualizations had also higher reading accuracy and knowledge gains. While the effects of different visualization formats were comparatively minor, customizing formats according to demographic and country differences was used to reduce adverse effects from these differences. These results emphasize the need to design visualizations that match characteristics of the intended audience and could inform better communication of climate change mitigation scenarios to non-expert audience.     

Pathways for climate resilient development: Human well-being within a safe and just space in the 21st century

The concept of climate resilient development pathways (CRDPs) introduced in IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report remains poorly conceptualised. We have attempted to deepen the conceptualisation of climate resilient development (CRD) or climate compatible development, while charting its pathways through fuzzy cognitive maps (FCMs)-based simulations aided by knowledge based on stakeholders’ insights. We conceptualise CRD as a development embracing mitigation, adaptation and inclusive sustainable development to advance planetary health and well-being for all. The FCMs-based simulations demonstrate that appropriate enabling conditions are critical to the achievement of CRD, the most important of them being (i) the ethics, values, and worldviews shaping CRD’s directions by framing appropriate climate narratives and action; (ii) partnerships and commitment to finance and technology by the governments; (iii) interactions between the actors and arenas of engagement facilitating CRD decisions and actions; and (iv) dimensions of governance at multiple levels involving policy, institutions and practice. Citizens’ defence against climate change as a human right, along with planetary health and well-being, demands synergies while implementing mitigation, adaptation and sustainable development. Short-term decisions and actions related to mitigation, adaptation, and sustainable development could have long-term effects on CRDPs. CRD could entail a societal transformation to eudaimonic living for ensuring universal well-being. The findings of this research could have profound implications for multilateral negotiations.     

Use of aviation by climate change researchers: Structural influences,personal attitudes,and information provision

Aviation is a fast-growing sector, releasing more carbon dioxide per passenger kilometre than other transport modes. For climate change researchers, work-related travel – including for conferences and fieldwork – is a major carbon-emitting activity. At the same time, many argue that climate scientists have an important role in curbing their own aviation emissions to align their practices with their assertions in relation to emissions reduction. We examine the tensions between competing professional demands in relation to flying; measure levels of flying by climate and non-climate researchers; assess influences on choices and attitudes; and consider how information provision and structural changes might enable changes in practice. Study 1 entails a large, international survey of flying undertaken by climate change (including sustainability and environmental science) researchers and those from other disciplines (N = 1408). Study 2 tests effects of varying information provision on researchers’ behavioural intentions and policy support to reduce flying (N = 362). Unexpectedly, we find climate change researchers – particularly professors – fly more than other researchers, but are also more likely to have taken steps to reduce or offset their flying. Providing information about the impacts of aviation increases behavioural intentions and support for institutional policies to reduce flying, particularly amongst more pro-environmental respondents. However, while attitudinal factors (e.g., personal norm) predict willingness to reduce flying, structural/social factors (e.g., family commitments, location) are more important in predicting actual flying behaviour. Recent initiatives to develop a low-carbon and more inclusive research culture within climate science and the broader research community thus need to be supported by broader policies and technologies to encourage and enable low-carbon and avoided travel.     

Governing-by-aspiration? Assessing the nature and implications of including negative emission technologies (NETs) in country long-term climate strategies

In order to address the pressing challenge of climate change, countries are now submitting long-term climate strategies to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) process. These strategies include within them potential future use of ‘negative emissions technologies’ (NETs). NETs are interventions that remove carbon from the atmosphere, ranging from large-scale terrestrial carbon sequestration in forests, wetlands and soils, to use of carbon capture and storage technologies. We assess here how NETs are discussed in 29 long-term climate strategies, in order to ascertain the risk that including the promise of future NETs may delay the taking of short-term mitigation actions. Our analysis shows that almost all countries plan to rely on NETs, particularly enhanced use of natural carbon sinks, even as a wide array of challenges and trade-offs in doing so are highlighted. Many strategies call for improved accounting systems and market incentives in realizing future NETs. While no strategy explicitly suggests that NETs can be a substitute for short-term mitigation, most estimate substantial potential for future use of NETs even in the face of acknowledged uncertainties. This, we suggest, may have the consequence of resulting in what we describe here as ‘a spiral of delay’ characterized by the promise of future NET options juxtaposed with the simultaneous uncertainty around these future options. Our analysis highlights that this inter-connected delaying dynamic may be intrinsic to what we term ‘governing-by-aspiration’ within global climate politics, wherein the voicing of lofty future ambition risks replacing current action and accountability.     

Estimating present climate in a warming world: a model-based approach

Weather services base their operational definitions of “present” climate on past observations, using a 30-year normal period such as 1961–1990 or 1971–2000. In a world with ongoing global warming, however, past data give a biased estimate of the actual present-day climate. Here we propose to correct this bias with a “delta change” method, in which model-simulated climate changes and observed global mean temperature changes are used to extrapolate past observations forward in time, to make them representative of present or future climate conditions. In a hindcast test for the years 1991–2002, the method works well for temperature, with a clear improvement in verification statistics compared to the case in which the hindcast is formed directly from the observations for 1961–1990. However, no improvement is found for precipitation, for which the signal-to-noise ratio between expected anthropogenic changes and interannual variability is much lower than for temperature. An application of the method to the present (around the year 2007) climate suggests that, as a geographical average over land areas excluding Antarctica, 8–9 months per year and 8–9 years per decade can be expected to be warmer than the median for 1971–2000. Along with the overall warming, a substantial increase in the frequency of warm extremes at the expense of cold extremes of monthly-to-annual temperature is expected.     

The future urban heat-wave challenge in Africa: Exploratory analysis

Urbanization and climate change are among the most important global trends affecting human well-being during the twenty-first century. One region expected to undergo enormous urbanization and be significantly affected by climate change is Africa. Studies already find increases in temperature and high temperature events for the region. How many people will be exposed to heat events in the future remains unclear. This paper attempts to provide a first estimate of the number of African urban residents exposed to very warm 15-day heat events (>42 °C). Using the Shared Socio-economic Pathways and Representative Concentration Pathways framework we estimate the numbers of exposed, sensitive (those younger than 5 and older than 64 years), and those in low-income nations, with gross national products of $4000 ($2005, purchasing power parity), from 2010 to 2100. We examine heat events both with and without urban heat island estimates. Our results suggest that at the low end of the range, under pathways defined as sustainable (SSP 1) and low relative levels of climate change (RCP 2.6) without including the urban heat island effect there will be large populations (>300 million) exposed to very warm heat wave by 2100. Alternatively, by 2100, the high end exposure level is approximately 2.0 billion for SSP 4 under RCP 4.5 where the urban heat island effect is included.     

Does public policy support or undermine climate change adaptation? Exploring policy interplay across different scales of governance

Policy makers have now recognised the need to integrate thinking about climate change into all areas of public policy making. However, the discussion of ‘climate policy integration’ has tended to focus on mitigation decisions mostly taken at international and national levels. Clearly, there is also a more locally focused adaptation dimension to climate policy integration, which has not been adequately explored by academics or policy makers. Drawing on a case study of the UK, this paper adopts both a top-down and a bottom-up perspective to explore how far different sub-elements of policies within the agriculture, nature conservation and water sectors support or undermine potential adaptive responses. The top-down approach, which assumes that policies set explicit aims and objectives that are directly translated into action on the ground, combines a content analysis of policy documents with interviews with policy makers. The bottom-up approach recognises the importance of other actors in shaping policy implementation and involves interviews with actors in organisations within the three sectors. This paper reveals that neither approach offers a complete picture of the potentially enabling or constraining effects of different policies on future adaptive planning, but together they offer new perspectives on climate policy integration. These findings inform a discussion on how to implement climate policy integration, including auditing existing policies and ‘climate proofing’ new ones so they support rather than hinder adaptive planning.