Centre for Climate Change and Social Transformations: Climate Change Narratives Survey, 2020

Poortinga, Wouter and Shaw, Chris and Wang, Susie (2023). Centre for Climate Change and Social Transformations: Climate Change Narratives Survey, 2020. [Data Collection]. Colchester, Essex: UK Data Service. 10.5255/UKDA-SN-856479

The Centre for Climate Change Transformations (C3T) will be a global hub for understanding the profound changes required to address climate change. At its core, is a fundamental question of enormous social significance: how can we as a society live differently - and better - in ways that meet the urgent need for rapid and far-reaching emission reductions?

While there is now strong international momentum on action to tackle climate change, it is clear that critical targets (such as keeping global temperature rise to well within 2 degrees Celsius relative to pre-industrial levels) will be missed without fundamental transformations across all parts of society. C3T's aim is to advance society's understanding of how to transform lifestyles, organisations and social structures in order to achieve a low-carbon future, which is genuinely sustainable over the long-term.

Our Centre will focus on people as agents of transformation in four challenging areas of everyday life that impact directly on climate change but have proven stubbornly resistant to change: consumption of goods and physical products, food and diet, travel, and heating/cooling. We will work across multiple scales (individual, community, organisational, national and global) to identify and experiment with various routes to achieving lasting change in these challenging areas. In particular, we will test how far focussing on 'co-benefits' will accelerate the pace of change. Co-benefits are outcomes of value to individuals and society, over and above the benefits from reducing greenhouse gas emissions. These may include improved health and wellbeing, reduced waste, better air quality, greater social equality, security, and affordability, as well as increased ability to adapt and respond to future climate change. For example, low-carbon travel choices (such as cycling and car sharing) may bring health, social and financial benefits that are important for motivating behaviour and policy change. Likewise, aligning environmental and social with economic objectives is vital for behaviour and organisational change within businesses.

Our Research Themes recognise that transformative change requires: inspiring yet workable visions of the future (Theme 1); learning lessons from past and current societal shifts (Theme 2); experimenting with different models of social change (Theme 3); together with deep and sustained engagement with communities, business and governments, and a research culture that reflects our aims and promotes action (Theme 4).

Our Centre integrates academic knowledge from disciplines across the social and physical sciences with practical insights to generate widespread impact. Our team includes world-leading researchers with expertise in climate change behaviour, choices and governance. We will use a range of theories and research methods to fill key gaps in our understanding of transformation at different spatial and social scales, and show how to target interventions to impactful actions, groups and moments in time.

We will partner with practitioners (e.g., Climate Outreach, Greener-UK, China Centre for Climate Change Communication), policy-makers (e.g., Welsh Government) and companies (e.g., Anglian Water) to develop and test new ways of engaging with the public, governments and businesses in the UK and internationally. We will enhance citizens', organisations' and societal leaders' capacity to tackle climate change through various mechanisms, including secondments, citizens' panels, small-scale project funding, seminars, training, workshops, papers, blog posts and an interactive website. We will also experiment with transformations within academia itself, by trialling sustainable working practices (e.g., online workshops), being 'reflexive' (studying our own behaviour and its impacts on others), and making our outputs and data publically available.

Data description (abstract)

The Climate Change Narratives Survey 2020 is a nationally-representative survey (n=1,518) conducted in November and December 2020 on public perceptions of coronavirus and climate change. The survey extended previous research by systematically comparing perceptions of (personal and government) responsibility, efficacy and trust, as well as support for policies to address the two issues. The survey also used a novel approach to understand the trade-offs between hazards reduction, economic impact and personal freedom people are willing to make. The survey further included two ‘test’ narratives: one exploring respondents’ sense of agency, the other exploring the potential for health messaging to connect experiences of Covid-19 and climate change (See questionnaire for the two narratives). Respondents were asked to highlight which phrases they most strongly liked and disliked, and to explain the reasons for their choices. Data were collected online from 19 November to 12 December 2020 by DJS Research, a market research company. The sample consisted of 48% male and 51% female respondents. 10% were 18-24, 42% were 25-49, 25% were 50-64, and 23% were 65 years of age or over. Fourteen percent (14%) of the sample was from a Black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) background.

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