Reorienting climate change communication for effective mitigation: forcing people to be green or fostering grass-roots engagement?

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• Reorienting climate change communication for
  effective mitigation forcing people to be green
  or fostering grass-roots engagement?
• Dr David Ockwell
• July 2008

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Overview

• The problem
• A climate of urgency
• The public
• Where does behaviour change come in to this?
• Current communication efforts
• Fostering voluntary action
• Forcing people to be green
• Regulating behaviour
• The politics
• Why arent politicians regulating behaviour?
• Implications
• A middle way for climate communication

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• The problem

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Climate change

• EU 2oC target to avoid dangerous climate change
• Stern Review 2007
• Stabilisation at 500550ppm CO2e
• UK Climate Change Bill 60 reduction by 2050 -
  based on RCEP (2000) 550ppm CO2 target
• cited Met Office data suggesting 550ppm CO2
  2.3oC by 2100
• IPCC 2007?

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Global mean surface temperature increase above
pre-industrial levels IPCC WG1 (2007) p 66.
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• The public

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2005 UK carbon emissions by end userDefra / AEA
2006
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2005 UK carbon emissions by end userBased on
Defra / AEA 2006
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Agency vs. structure

• Infrastructure
• e.g. existing housing stock, planning
• Elasticity of demand and availability of
  substitutes
• e.g. public transport
• Institutions
• e.g. quarterly electricity bills, social norms
  (cars as status symbols)
• Socio-technical lock-in

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Emissions savings from behaviour change

• Walking, cycling, using public transport, car
  sharing
• Turning off the lights
• Energy saving light bulbs
• Not leaving things on standby
• Turning the heating down and wearing a jumper
• Recycling / composting
• Flying less

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• Current
• communication efforts

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Communicating behaviour change

• Are you doing your bit? campaign
• UK Climate Change Communications Working Group
• Developing a communication strategy to change
  attitudes towards climate change in the UK

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Is it working?

• Energy demand in domestic and transport sectors
  (Defra 2006)
• Residential sector emissions
• 1990 79 MtCO2e
• 2005 83 MtCO2e (5 increase)
• Transport
• 1990 109 MtCO2e
• 2005 120 MtCO2e (10 increase)

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Is it working?

• Public awareness has increased
• Only 1 havent heard of it
• Climate change still a low priority
• Only a minority of public take action to reduce
  energy consumption
• (Defra 2002/Norton and Leaman, 2004/Poortinga and
  Pidgeon, 2003)

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Why isnt it working?

• Issue perceived as removed in space and time
• BBC 2004 52 of people in UK believe will have
  little or no effect on them personally
• Energy Saving Trust 2004 85 UK residents
  believe effects of climate change will not be
  seen for decades

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Why isnt it working?

• Attitude-behaviour gap

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Why isnt it working?

• Attitude-behaviour gap

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Why isnt it working?

• Collective action problem / prisoners dilemma /
  free-rider effect

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Why isnt it working?

• Intractable opinions
• e.g. Michael Thompson's Cultural Theory -
  individualists, egalitarians, fatalists and
  hierarchists

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• Forcing people to be green

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Forced behaviour change

• Overcomes attitude-behaviour gap
• Overcomes collective action problem
• Individualists and fatalists have to suck it up
• Responds to the urgency of the problem

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Regulated behaviour and encouraging innovation

• Technical innovation in low carbon direction is
  in anticipation of future regulation of carbon
  emissions e.g. hybrid vehicle technologies

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Risks Opportunities of Carbon
ConstraintsSource WRI 2001
Additional cost per vehicle
DECREASING RISK FROM CARBON CONSTRAINTS
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Regulated behaviour and encouraging innovation

• Regulations, or the anticipation thereof,
  encourage low carbon innovation
• Social innovation e.g. car clubs, walking buses,
  community heat and power generation, social
  energy cost reducing schemes, transition towns

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• The politics

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The government gets the science

• Peter Madden (Previously Head of Policy at the
  Environment Agency Ministerial Adviser at DETR
  and DEFRA)
• I don't think that Government inaction on
  climate change has anything to do with the
  science.

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The government gets the science

• John Lawton (Chair, Royal Commission on
  Environmental Pollution)
• David Miliband has unquestionably grasped the
  science.Miliband knows urgent action is needed.
  
• It is not just the politicians, the senior
  DEFRA civil servants get the science too.

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The environment as bad politics

• Electoral cycles vs. climate change

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The environment as bad politics

• Political capital a precious resource
• Fuel protests 2000
• it put the fear of God into them and it is
  used rather too frequently now as a justification
  for not doing much with transport.
• Sara Eppel, Director of Policy, Sustainable
  Development Commission
• Road pricing petition almost 2 million
  signatures
• Press coverage of Climate Change Bill
• VAT on domestic energy
• London Mayoral elections

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The environment as bad politics

• Mid-termism
• 2005 election environment most important issue
  for only 2 of voters (Whiteley et al 2005 154)

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Environmental Protection in Party Manifestos
1959-2005 Sources Budge et al (2001) and
Klingemann (2006)
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Additional problems with forcing people to be
green

• Ignores excellent examples of grass roots action
• Unlikely to change values in the long term
• e.g. attitudes to smoking and congestion changed
  before legislation

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Additional problems with forcing people to be
green

• What can you force people to do?
• Personal carbon trading, rubbish charging,
  plastic bag tax, differentiated parking charges
  (Richmond), VED, road pricing, speed
  cameras/limits
• Turn off the lights/fill the kettle less/turn
  heating down?
• Domestic energy consumption largely
  infrastructural issue (agency / structure)

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Learning from past precedents

• Smoking ban
• Banning plastic bags in Modbury, Devon
• Seat belts, drink driving
• London congestion charge
• 1970s oil crisis (stickers in Austrian cars)
• Slavery

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• Implications
• a new agenda for research on communication

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An insight from social psychology

• Communication campaigns based on outdated
  information deficit model
• Behaviour change requires full public
  engagement
• Engagement has three aspects (Lorenzoni et al
  2007, p.446)
• cognitive
• affective
• behavioural
• it is not enough for people to know about
  climate change in order to be engaged they also
  need to care about it, be motivated and able to
  take action

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Climate communication a middle way

• Two crucial, but distinct roles for
  communication
• Facilitate public acceptance of regulation
• Stimulate grass-roots action

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Climate communication a middle way

• Key affective (emotional) engagement

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Reorienting the research agenda

• Communicatively smart communication
• Politically smart communication

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Communicatively smart communication

• Affective communication
• New approaches that learn from diverse areas
  including the humanities, arts and marketing
• Understanding communication in the context of
  schools
• Understanding climate icons

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Politically smart communication

• Directed communications aimed at providing rapid
  feedback to politicians of a change in the public
  mood
• What informs politicians perceptions of public
  opinion?
• Focus groups?
• Target constituencies?
• Direct action?
• When does something become an electoral issue?
• When does something become party political e.g.
  the Cameron effect?
• Ethical issues researcher vs. activist

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Conclusion

• Regulating peoples behaviour is an important,
  effective option in the context of the urgency of
  climate change (remain aware of agency/structure
  issue)
• Still a role for grassroots action
• Goes to the very heart of our beliefs about the
  boundaries of public and private, the limits of
  state control, and the rational behaviour of
  individuals

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Conclusion

• Middle way for climate communication that is
  politically and communicatively smart
• Centrality of affective engagement
• Environment as good politics, not bad politics

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