Climate change perception in Romania

Abstract

In the last decades, anthropogenic drivers have significantly influenced the natural climate variability of Earth’s atmosphere. Climate change has become a subject of major interest for different levels of our society, such as national governments, businesses, local administration, or citizens. While national and local policies propose mitigation and adaptation strategies for different sectors, public perception is a key component of any implementation plan. This study investigates the CC perception in Romania, based on a national-scale online survey performed in the spring of 2020, aiming to outline the prominence of environmental and CC issues, level of information and interest, perceived causes, changes perceived in meteorological phenomena at the regional scale, perceived impacts, and the psychological representation of the CC. The study investigates single causal factors of perception. We found that particularly (i) the regional differences on climate change intensity strongly bias the perception of CC causes; (ii) age is very likely to influence the acceptance of CC, the importance of environmental issues, and the levels of information and interest; while (iii) age, gender, and place of residence (rural–urban) are very likely to control the changes perceived in the occurrence of various meteorological phenomena, and their impact. This research is the first statistically relevant analysis (± 4%, statistical significance) developed at national and regional scales and the only study of climate change perception performed during the COVID-19 pandemic in Romania. Its results may represent the baseline for more in-depth research. Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s00704-022-04041-4.

Which Are the Best Site and Stand Conditions for Silver Fir (Abies alba Mill.) Located in the Carpathian Mountains?

“…Hilmers [16] has shown that the productivity of silver fir stands increases as temperature grows at high altitudes while Toromani [50] mentions that the extension of the vegetation season favours the increase of silver fir productivity. These projections are confirmed both for the territory of our country and for the Carpathian area, which may confirm the higher productivity of silver fir in some Carpathian chains such as Eastern and Southern parts [51,52]. Moreover, the silver fir productivity increment in stands located at altitudes of up to 1100 m as we observed in our research, is correlated with the temperatures from the cold season (January-March) as other authors have already shown [40].…”

Believing in or Denying Climate Change for Questionable Reasons: Generic Conspiracist Beliefs, Personality, and Climate Change Perceptions of Romanian University Students

“…Considering the specific population of the study, this pattern of relationships indicated by our results suggest that young Romanian residents’ personal position towards the topic of climate change may be influenced, at least in part, by their adherence to certain generic conspiracist theories centered on hidden but impactful actions of powerful agents aiming to attain their secret goals [ 27 ]. Past findings have highlighted that the Romanian population tends to underestimate the seriousness of the issue of climate change and has a low involvement in tackling it, in comparison to the EU average, and that the Romanian youth does not show the higher concern about climate change of most young populations in other countries [ 18 , 23 , 25 , 26 ]. Our findings highlight conspiracist beliefs related to personal well-being as a significant factor that may affect young Romanians’ climate change beliefs, although the results of the correlational analysis also indicate other types of generic conspiracist theories which have negative association with these beliefs and thus fuel skepticism about climate change.…”

“…Yet, this association between age and climate change concerns does not appear in the case of the Romanian population, as the 2019 Special Eurobarometer data reveals [ 23 ]. Moreover, a recent investigation [ 26 ] of the perceived importance of environmental issues found the opposite relationship in a Romanian sample, with a lower percentage of the young participants considering environmental issues to be very important in comparison to the other age groups. It is plausible that the general tendency of the young populations worldwide to be more sensitive about environmental and climate change issues to be, in the case of the Romanian youth, attenuated by opposing drivers of their beliefs on these matters, which make them more skeptical about the scientific evidence on climate change compared to their similar age counterparts in the rest of the EU.…”

Perception of the climate risk phenomena in Suceava municipality and surrounding areas

“…The authors of the questionnaire chose 14 climate risk phenomena that the respondents passed through the Bryant E.'s criteria, giving them grades from 1 to 5: grade 1 for the most severe / dangerous / damaging phenomena, ..., grade 5 for the least severe / dangerous / damaging phenomena. The 9 criteria chosen in the Bryant classification were: the severity of the phenomenon (1), the duration of the event (2), the total area affected (3), the total number of deaths (4), the total economic damages ( 5), the social effect ( 6), the long-term impact (7), the speed of occurrence of the event (8) and the occurrence of associated phenomena ( 9) (Bryant, 1991). The respondents of this questionnaire assessed cold waves and negative temperature singularities (temperature below -20°C) as the most severe / dangerous / damaging weather-climate phenomena in this area, and hence gave them the lowest scores (2.41 points).…”

“…As for improvements in the methodology of studying public perception of natural risks (including climatic) that affect a certain territory, we note a study focused to a higher degree on the risk perception methodology (Gotiu and Surdeanu, 2007). The most recent study on the perception of climate change in Romania was published in April 2022 by Cheval et al and aims to highlight menu issues caused by climate change, the level of information of the population, the perceived impact and the psychological impact of climate change (Cheval et al, 2022).…”