Climate change mitigation at the individual level: examining climate change beliefs and energy saving behaviours with the aim to encourage the reduction of end-user energy consumption

L Education (General)

Koletsou, Alexia ; Mancy, Rebecca

University:University of Glasgow

Department:School of Education

关键词: climate change, energy saving behaviours, self-efficacy;   

Others  :  http://theses.gla.ac.uk/6457/1/2015KoletsouPhD.pdf

来源: University of Glasgow

【 摘 要 】

Unsustainable levels of energy consumption, resulting in carbon emissions, are leading toone of the world’s greatest environmental problems: climate change. The only short-termstrategy for reducing these emissions is a reduction in end-user energy demand.Households have a major part to play in this reduction as they are responsible for 29% oftotal UK emissions (excluding direct transport related emissions and indirect emissions).The research reported in this thesis contributes to understanding what makes people adoptor not adopt climate change mitigation behaviours. The study employed an on-linequestionnaire answered by a nationally representative quota sample of just over fivehundred participants of Great Britain (England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales)aged 18 years and older. It thus contributes a major dataset for secondary analysis.The findings of this research contribute through an analysis of three different aspects ofclimate change beliefs and behaviours. Firstly, the examination of climate change beliefsreveals that justifications differ depending on belief. More specifically, those who believethat climate change is happening base their belief on changing weather, while those whodon’t believe climate change is happening were found to base their belief on the naturalprocess involved. A third category of those unsure whether climate change was happeningwas also identified. These respondents were found to point to both humans and othercauses for climate change. Additionally, perceptions of believers about climate change(impact of lifestyle and action for climate change, ability of humans to overcome climatechange, problem extent of climate change, and levels of confidence in scientists’confidence both regarding climate predictions and regarding the link between emissionsand climate change) were found to differ to those held by deniers.Secondly, the data demonstrate that there is little association between belief in climatechange and the adoption of climate change mitigation behaviours. Although the majority ofthe public state that they believe climate change is happening and that they take action outof concern for climate change, neither of these two factors was found to be related to theadoption of the 21 energy saving behaviours examined (Gardner and Stern, 2008).Furthermore, the findings indicate that self-efficacy (which is concerned with people’sbeliefs about their capabilities to perform a specific behaviour) is associated withbehaviour adoption. However, despite money being found to be the key motivator forbehaviour adoption, the behaviours carried out do not correspond to the ones that are themost effective for saving money, nor those perceived to be the most effective. This couldbe due to misunderstandings of the effectiveness of behaviours. Thirdly, interventionsaimed to encourage households to reduce their energy consumption are examined througha literature review. This is followed by an examination of the potential audiences thatcould benefit the most from targeted interventions. Sociodemographic variables are able topartially identify the groups of people that may respond most positively to targetedinterventions (incorporating antecedent and consequence strategies); those who want to domore for the environment, those who save the least amount of energy, and those who makethe biggest error regarding the potential financial savings.This research suggests that interventions should focus on supporting individuals indeveloping self-efficacy in relation to mitigation behaviours, providing information on thepossible savings when adopting different behaviours and on addressing the barriers tobehaviour adoption.