Abstract
In Round 8 (2016/17) of the European Social Survey (ESS), questions were included to measure attitudes towards climate change and energy for the first time.
Three of these items - measuring climate change concern, cause and personal responsibility - were repeated in Round 10 of the survey, fielded across Europe in 2020-22. At the latest online event - organised by the ESS HQ based at City, University of London - experts will assess this public opinion on climate change and energy.
Wouter Poortinga (Cardiff University) - who led the team who proposed the climate change module for the ESS – will give an overview of the design process and discuss the challenges of conducting large-scale international social surveys on the topic.
This will be illustrated with a number of key findings, showing that the levels of and factors in attitudes to climate change vary across different regions.
John Kenny (University of East Anglia) and Stephen Fisher (Trinity College, University of Oxford) will analyse the role of climate attitudes in how voters divide themselves between different types of political party.
Thea Gregersen (Norwegian Research Centre, NORCE) will examine whether research from the United States that found strong connections between political orientation and climate change beliefs has been replicated in the European context.
Malcolm Fairbrother (Umeå University) will introduce published research into the relationship between climate change attitudes and support for extra taxes on fossil fuel production.
Cameron Brick (University of Amsterdam) will present findings from a study into the motivations and social processes that predict pro-environmental behaviours, such as political engagement and reduced energy consumption.
A Q&A chaired by ESS deputy director, Dr. Eric Harrison, will follow the presentations.
1-1.20pm: European attitudes to climate change
Climate perceptions have been extensively studied over the past two to three decades, but this research has been conducted in a small number of countries, and it is not always clear if results can be generalised to other countries/cultural contexts.
This presentation shows the background and design of the Climate Change and Energy module that was fielded in 2016-2017 as part of Round 8 of the European Social Survey (ESS).
It will give an overview of the design process and discuss the challenges of conducting barge-scale international social surveys on the topic.
This will be illustrated with a number of key findings, showing that the levels of and factors in attitudes to climate change vary across different regions.
About the speaker
Wouter Poortinga is Professor of Environmental Psychology at the Welsh School of Architecture and the School of Psychology at Cardiff University, and co-director of the ESRC-funded Centre for Climate and Social Transformations (CAST).
His main research interests are in public engagement with climate change and sustainable lifestyles and behaviour.
Wouter led the design of the Climate Change and Energy module for Round 8 of the European Social Survey; developed the Welsh Sustainability Segmentation Model; and recently redesigned the environmental attitudes and behaviour module of the Understanding Society Survey.
Within CAST, he co-leads the theme that works with partners and public participants to accelerate low-carbon transformations through individual and community-level interventions.
1.20-1.40pm: The changing politicisation of climate change attitudes in Europe
The task of decarbonisation is not made easier for governments if voters and parties are divided in their views on climate change.
Politicisation of climate change attitudes is extremely marked in the United States, with climate sceptic voters supporting the Republicans and climate conscious voters supporting Democrats.
The extent of such polarisation in Europe has tended to be more limited, but maybe growing.
In this presentation, John Kenny (University of East Anglia) and Stephen Fisher (Trinity College, University of Oxford) will analyse the role of climate attitudes in how voters divide themselves between different party families, including populist-right and green party families as well as social democrat and mainstream-right party families.
They will assess whether such politicisation of climate attitudes has strengthened in recent years using the European Social Survey (ESS) data for 2020-22 by comparison with the comparable surveys for 2016-17.
About the speakers
John Kenny is Senior Research Associate on the ERC-funded project Deep Decarbonisation: The Democratic Challenge of Navigating Governance Traps (DeepDCarb) project at the University of East Anglia (UEA). He examines whether and how publics are willing to commit to policies and actions that would result in substantial and rapid societal decarbonisation. Prior to joining UEA, he held positions at the University of Southampton and the University of Oxford.
Stephen Fisher is Professor of Political Sociology at Trinity College, University of Oxford. His research focuses on political attitudes and behaviour, especially on elections and voting in Britain and elsewhere. Recent research has included the politics of Brexit, public opinion on climate change, and ethnic differences in political attitudes and behaviour. Fisher is also interested in methodological issues for the design and analysis of surveys and opinion polls, and in election and referendum forecasting.
1.40-2pm: Climate change and political orientation in ESS countries
Research from the United States reports strong connections between political orientation and climate change beliefs. To what degree can this be generalised to the European context? And what role can political orientation play?
Based on the process of motivated reasoning, we suggest that political orientation could moderate the relationship between beliefs about the human causes and negative consequences of climate change on the one hand and worry about climate change on the other.
Using data from Round 8 of the European Social Survey, we find support for the moderation. Specifically, the relationship between climate change beliefs and worry was weaker among right-leaning as compared to left-leaning individuals.
However, we also find the effect of (the left-right measurement of) political orientation to be weak, non-existing, or even reversed in some European countries.
About the speaker
Thea Gregersen wrote her PhD about climate change perceptions across Europe, using ESS data to investigate the relationship between cognitions, emotions, and behaviour.
She is currently working as a researcher at the Norwegian Research Centre (NORCE) and is one of the scientific coordinators of the Climate and Environment- group collecting data through the Norwegian Citizen Panel.
2-2.20pm: Political trust and the relationship between climate change beliefs and support for fossil fuel taxes
Malcolm Fairbrother (Umeå University) will discuss how taxes on fossil fuels could be a useful policy tool for governments seeking to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
However, such taxes are politically challenging to introduce, as public opinion is usually hostile to them.
Prior studies have found that attitudes toward carbon and other environmental taxes reflect not just people's beliefs and concerns about the problems these taxes address, but also their trust in their country's politicians and political system.
Using multilevel models fitted to data collected in 2016/17 on 42,401 individuals in 23 European countries, the presentation will focus on how these two factors interact.
Amongst respondents in countries with low levels of political trust, being aware and concerned about climate change is at most weakly associated with support for taxes on fossil fuels.
Europeans with high political trust, on the other hand, tend to be much more supportive of fossil fuel taxes if they also believe in the reality and dangers of anthropogenic climate change.
Cross-nationally, the nations whose populations are most supportive of higher taxes on fossil fuels are not those that are more aware and concerned about climate change; rather, they are those with the highest levels of political trust.
About the speaker
Malcolm Fairbrother is a professor of sociology at Umeå University and the Institute for Futures Studies (in Sweden) and the University of Graz (Austria). His research focuses on climate and
environmental policy and politics, social and political trust, and social science research methods. His current projects investigate the decoupling of greenhouse gas emissions from economic growth, and public attitudes towards policies for environmental protection.
2.20-2.40pm: Segmentation of ESS climate change beliefs and related projects
Camron Brick (University of Amsterdam) will discuss a group study into the motivations and social processes that predict pro-environmental behaviours from political engagement to reduced consumption.
It will focus on a2022 segmentation paper using ESS climate change beliefs to provide an example of how public opinion on climate change and related behaviours was approached
The presentation will also focus on the Brick’s latest thinking about the concept of pro-environmental behavior and what it means for measurement and societal impact.
Brick will also share a resource of free, open psychological datasets and introduce Global Environmental Psychology as a new, no-fee journal in environmental psychology.
About the speaker
Cameron Brick is an Assistant Professor of Social Psychology with tenure and supervises a research group in Environmental Psychology at the University of Amsterdam, Netherlands.
The group studies how individuals react to collective problems such as climate change, and we use surveys and experiments to predict behavior from thoughts, identities, personalities, and social context.
They also study consumer and household decisions from plastics to fast fashion, and communication effectiveness focused on the comprehension of policy options. Website; Google Scholar.
The event is free to attend, simply register your details to receive a unique Zoom Webinar link.
Please note that you will be required to register for the event using an email address linked to a valid Zoom account.
Attendance at City events is subject to our terms and conditions.