Predicting thresholds of social behavioural responses to rapid climate change

Researchers
Judith Petts
Dr Glenn McGregor
Dr Simon Niemeyer
Dr Kersty Hobson

Institution
University of Birmingham

Summary of Project
Project Update
Researcher Profiles
Researcher Contact Details
Publications
Annual progress report - 2003 (pdf format)

Summary

This research will contribute to understanding the way in which individuals might respond to rapid climate change. Through survey the ways in which impacts are perceived will be mapped and compared with potential behavioural responses. Of particular interest will be any threshold in responses that may translate into significant social impacts. The research will test the utility of a research methodology with potential for replication and development in a larger-scale survey.

Background/Rationale
The social impact of rapid climate change, including any relationship to longer-term scenarios, is not well understood. In terms of physical impacts rapid climate change is a change of large enough magnitude, relative to natural climate variability, that a shift in the mean or variability of the climate from one level to another occurs. Such changes have had significant impacts on the sustainability of past societies. Contemporary concern relates to how human-induced climate change and associated changes in climate and weather patterns may impact present and future societies.

Frameworks for researching and understanding the impacts of climate change in general are well-developed. Most frameworks are framed in terms of capacity to adapt. However, rapid climate change brings with it new challenges, including how to differentiate it from non-rapid scenarios. For the purposes of this research, rapid climate change occurs at the threshold beyond which individuals react in a manner that outpaces the ability of institutions (social, economic, political) to keep pace. This results in an impairment of longer-term adaptive capacity.

Rapid climate change represents not only an acceleration of the processes challenging adaptive capacity, but may also give rise to a qualitatively different set of social behavioural responses, particularly where climate change is experienced at the extremes of weather patterns, as opposed to a marginal change in existing patterns. Understanding the thresholds at which such behaviour occurs necessitates a deeper focus on individual and social psychological processes, set within broad social contexts.

Key research questions

1. What rate of climate change can be considered 'rapid' so far as it gives rise to a suite of social responses?
2. Can a threshold model of such responses contribute to a better understanding of the social impact of rapid climate change?
3. How might behavioural responses vary among people from different social contexts and backgrounds?
4. Can a mixed qualitative/quantitative research method (Q method) assist in identifying major social groupings in terms of behavioural responses

Research approach
The research will follow four stages. Stage One will review the current scientific understanding of rapid climate change. A broad review of historical precedents of social impact of climate change will assist with the development of rapid climate change scenarios. The review will also draw upon representations of climate change in popular media and communication.

In Stage Two, this information will be used to develop a series of rapid climate change scenarios covering major sections of UK society. These scenarios will provide the usual physical, social and temporal impacts as well as the social boundary conditions within which adaptive/maladaptive behaviours will manifest.

In Stage Three, a pilot 'Q method' study will be developed. The method combines both qualitative and quantitative data inputs. It will produce (quantitative) outputs in the form of typical response groupings to climate change. The mechanics of this process will involve the development of a series of statements drawn from the literature review relating to subjective responses to rapid climate change. A small (up to 40) sample individuals will be asked to perform the 'Q sorts' - ranking the statements according to level of agreement - relating to the climate change scenarios. Preferred responses to each scenario will also be surveyed.

Stage Four, will analyse the results of the Q sorts. These will be cross correlated with responses to climate change to look for consistency between subjective predisposition and behaviour, and the impact of the differing climate scenarios on these relationships. The outcome will permit the mapping of types of individuals (in given social and economic context) and their response to rapid climate change scenarios.

Intended outcomes
Stage One will produce a stand-alone report of the nature of social impacts (specifically behavioural ones) to rapid climate change based on historical and recent case studies. A small report on possible rapid climate change scenarios in the UK will also be produced. These will also be integrated with outcomes from the Q study to produce a technical report, which will have a policy agency orientation. Journal papers will aim at both climate scientists and social scientists. These will outline the major types of subjective and associated behavioural responses to rapid climate change and the impact of rate of change and contextual factors on the likelihood of particular behaviours.

Project Update October 2003

We anticipate that the project will be completed on schedule (end of December). So far the project team has successfully completed the literature review, design (including a small pilot) and fieldwork phases.

The results of the pilot study were reported to the rapid climate change researchers meeting on 28 August. They revealed some tentatively interesting results -- including a difference in both the size and nature of response to warming and cooling scenarios. There was also an apparent 'path dependence' in the type of response. In other words there appears to be a relationship between pre-existing attitudes in relation to climate change and the nature of the change in response to the climate change scenarios. The pilot also revealed a number of weaknesses in both the methodology and surveys used, which were addressed in the lead up to the main fieldwork stage.

The fieldwork process involved presenting participants with a series of climate change scenarios and gauging responses using a number of approaches (ranking policy issues, Q sort and discussion regarding perceptions and likely responses). Approximately 30 individuals participated, recruited from across the Birmingham University campus from a range of departments and roles (admin staff, academics and students). Each interview lasted between 1.5 - 2hrs. Four scenarios were presented, including the status quo, representing varying levels of warming and cooling, and associated climatic impacts. These scenarios were devised by Glenn McGregor, the climatologist on the research team.

Because of the recruitment method (sending notices to heads of schools inviting responses) there is an event bias due to self-selection: all of the participants indicated some level of pre-existing interest in climate change. However, given the way that the research and method of analysis has been designed, it was most important to achieve good range in terms of varying attitudes to climate change. The analysis will also be conducted so as to maximise the value of the results in view of the relatively small number of participants.

Analysis of the results is about to begin. A draft report of the analysis will be produced in the next 4-6 weeks and a final report produced by the end of the year. No publications have emerged from the research as yet, but it is anticipated that at least two will be produced soon after the new year, targeted at both social science and climate related journals. A report on the meeting of rapid climate change researchers will also be produced shortly.

Researchers

Professor Judith Petts. (PI)
Judith Petts is Professor of Environmental Risk Management and Head of the School of Geography, Earth & Environmental Sciences, the University of Birmingham. She has 20 years of applied research and advisory work on environmental risk management with a focus at the interface between science and the public and decision-making. She is involved in research into new approaches to public involvement in decision-making, and in examining public responses to risks, risk communication and the media and risk. She is a member of NERC Council, has acted as an advisor to House of Lords and Commons committees and works with a number of government departments on risk communication.

Dr Glenn McGregor
Dr Glenn McGregor is Reader in Synoptic Climatology. His research interests are climate and health, climatic variability and change. He is involved in a number of projects on climate and health and has the responsibility of developing heat stress watch warning systems for 5 European cities in the context of the EU PHEWE project and is PI for the NERC COAPEC project Climate Information for the Health Sector.

See also: www.ges.bham.ac.uk/staff/profiles/mcgregor.htm

Dr Simon Niemeyer
Simon Niemeyer's areas of research interest include deliberative democracy and the environment and environmental human behaviour within particular institutional frameworks. He is experienced in using quantitative and qualitative methods for understanding human environmental behaviour in political and economic contexts, particularly in relation to deliberative processes, which will be transferred to this project. He also has a strong interdisciplinary background in areas as diverse as politics and political theory, economics, ecology and geology.

See also: www.ges.bham.ac.uk/staff/profiles/niemeyer.htm

Dr Kersty Hobson
Kersty Hobson is an environmental social scientist, whose previous research has focussed on the policies, discourses and cultural politics of sustainability, with particular reference to sustainable consumption. Her experience of using qualitative methodologies in both academic and applied contexts will contribute to this research project, as will her interest in public perceptions of environmental problems and processes.

See also: www.ges.bham.ac.uk/staff/profiles/hobson.htm

Contact Details

Professor Judith Petts
Centre for Environmental Research and Training
University of Birmingham,
Edgbaston,
Birmingham B15 2TT

Dr Glenn McGregor

Dr Simon Niemeyer

Dr Kersty Hobson

Publications

Project Update (pdf)
October 2003