Transcript GSTN microgen sep 04

Reorienting climate change
communication for effective mitigation:
The public, politics and forcing people
to be green
Dr David Ockwell
February 2008
[email protected]
Sussex Energy Group
SPRU - Science and Technology Policy Research
Overview
1. The problem:
Climate change – what are we trying to achieve?
2. The public:
Public behaviour change
3. Forcing people to be green:
Regulation and behaviour change
4. The politics:
Why aren’t politicians regulating behaviour?
5. Implications:
A new role for public communication
Reorienting the research agenda
Sussex Energy Group
SPRU - Science and Technology Policy Research
The problem
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Climate change
• EU 2oC target to avoid dangerous climate change
• Stern Review
 Stabilisation at 500–550ppm 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.
Global Mean Surface Temperature Increase (°C)
Equilibrium
CO2e (ppm)
Best Estimate
>90% probability
above
>66% probability
in the range
350
1.0
0.5
0.6-1.4
450
2.1
1.0
1.4-3.1
550
2.9
1.5
1.9-4.4
650
3.6
1.8
2.4-5.5
750
4.3
2.1
2.8-6.4
1000
5.5
2.8
3.7-8.3
3.1
4.2-9.4
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- Science and Technology
6.3 Policy Research
The public
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2005 UK carbon emissions by end user
Defra / AEA 2006
Other
18%
T ransport
28%
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Industry
27%
Domestic
27%
2005 UK carbon emissions by end user
Based on Defra / AEA 2006
Other
18%
Transport - air
5%
Industry
28%
Transport industry
13%
Transport private vehicles
9%
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Domestic
27%
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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Encouraging behaviour change
• ‘Are you doing your bit?’ campaign
• Defra, Carbon Trust, BERR, DfT, Energy Savings Trust,
Environment Agency, UK Climate Impacts Programme:
UK Climate Change Communications Working Group
Developing “a communication strategy to change attitudes
towards climate change in the UK”
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Problems with achieving behaviour
change
• ‘Attitude-behaviour’ gap
• Collective action problem / prisoner’s dilemma / free-rider effect
• 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
• Social innovation e.g. car clubs, walking buses, community heat
and power generation, social energy cost reducing schemes,
transition towns
• 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 Constraints
Additional cost per vehicle
DECREASING RISK FROM CARBON CONSTRAINTS
Source: WRI 2001
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Regulated behaviour and encouraging
innovation
• Regulations, or the anticipation thereof, encourage low carbon
innovation
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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’.
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
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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)
12
10
8
% 6
Con
Lab
LD
4
2
0
59 64 66 70 74 74 79 83 87 92 97 01 05
General Election
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Implications
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Reorienting climate change
communication for effective mitigation
A new role for climate change communication:
Changing people’s perceptions of the need to accept
regulation
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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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Forced behaviour change:
Questions
• What can you force people to do?
 Turn off the lights/fill the kettle less/turn heating down?
 Domestic energy consumption largely infrastructural issue
(agency / structure)
 Personal carbon trading, rubbish charging, plastic bag tax,
differentiated parking charges (Richmond), VED, road
pricing, speed cameras/limits – any others?
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Reorienting the research agenda
• Universities most trusted sources of information (Lorenzoni et
al. 2007)
• Research already under way:
 UEA, Surrey, Oxford, Sussex etc
• Not arguing that existing research effort on behaviour change should
be forgotten – high degree of synergy
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Reorienting the research agenda
•
Recognition at a more strategic level
“Changing behaviours and lifestyles” = first of five key themes
identified by Research Councils’ Energy Programme
1.
‘map’ people’s current energy perceptions
2.
develop and test innovative methods of public engagement
3.
understand role of media and mass communications in forming
lifestyle aspirations & influencing energy consumption
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Reorienting the research agenda
1. Communicatively smart communication
2. Politically smart communication
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Communicatively smart communication
• Insights from advertising e.g. diffuse issue, diverse social
groups – synergy with discrete areas where regulation possible
• Make it local
• A role for the arts? e.g. Nicholson-Cole 2005
• Understanding framing effects e.g. Whitmarsh (forthcoming)
• Engaging with children?
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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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SPRU - Science and Technology Policy Research
Conclusion
• Regulating people’s behaviour is an important, effective option in the
context of the urgency of climate change (remain aware of
agency/structure issue)
• Reorient communication efforts towards influencing perceptions of the
need for regulation, rather than influencing perceptions in an attempt
to change behaviour
• Environment as good politics, not bad politics
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