Convincing conservatives: Private sector action can bolster support for climate change mitigation in the United States

How Negative Frames Can Undermine Public Support for Studying Solar Geoengineering in the U.S

“…Several studies in the U.S. and United Kingdom have explored how exposure to framed messages influence public opinion about solar geoengineering interventions (e.g., Corner & Pidgeon, 2015;Bellamy et al, 2016;Fairbrother, 2016;Merk et al, 2016;Mahajan et al, 2019;Raimi et al, 2021). When people are unfamiliar with a concept, its framing may have a particularly strong influence (Druckman & Lupia, 2017), an effect that Raimi et al, 2021documented. As Mahajan et al (2019 explain, "Familiarity with solar geoengineering in Western Europe, Canada, and the United States-the regions best studied to date-remains low.…”

“…Empirical experiments on the framing of solar geoengineering have yielded mixed results. Raimi et al (2021) evaluated responses to exposure to one of four brief newspaper articles about solar geoengineering embedded in a survey that included three framed messages about the technology: that it is a major solution in which "we wouldn't have to do much more to stop the worst effects of climate change", a temporary (minor) solution in which we would "have to do more to stop the worst effects of climate change", or a risky technology frame that emphasized "playing with the climate at such a grand scale could be disastrous" (p. 303). The results indicated that exposure to the frames had little effect on liberal respondents' concern about or belief in human-caused climate change; however, conservatives and moderates who were exposed to any of the treatments expressed weaker beliefs in climate change compared to respondents in the control condition.…”

“…Kahan et al (2015) found, however, that conservatives were more open to a framed message about climate change after learning about geoengineering (i.e., after reading a story advocating for greater investments into geoengineering as a "necessary and effective" alternative to stricter pollution regulations, p. 197) because it seems to offer a means of avoiding regulatory responses to climate change. Similarly, geoengineering may be more amendable to values such as support for free markets, which may lead conservatives to believe more in climate change and make them willing to consider mitigation measures [Campbell & Kay, (2014); Gillis et al, (2021)]. Given the dearth of research on framing and support for solar geoengineering in different information environments, we evaluate the following preregistered research question:…”

“…To date, there have been few studies on the public's views concerning doing research on, funding research for, or implementing solar geoengineering technologies (Bellamy et al, 2016;Buck, 2016;Merk et al, 2016;Wagner and Merk, 2019;Nelson et al, 2021). Additionally, only a handful of studies have tested the impact of exposure to framed messages about solar geoengineering on the U.S. public's related beliefs (e.g., Corner & Pidgeon, 2015;Bellamy et al, 2016;Fairbrother, 2016;Merk et al, 2016;Mahajan et al, 2019;Raimi et al, 2021). Nor have any studies, to our knowledge, evaluated response to framed messages about climate engineering technologies across different contexts, such as in a setting where basic scientific research is politicized or competing messages are presented (Druckman, 2017;Chinn et al, 2020).…”

The Role of Private Environmental Governance in Climate Adaptation

“…The private sector is increasingly undertaking private environmental governance (PEG) actions for climate change mitigation, whether through renewable power commitments, supply chain contracting requirements, investor collaborative efforts with non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to pressure companies to set carbon targets or reduce carbon emissions, or other steps. These actions are an important gap-filling effort given the limits of international, national and sub-national climate mitigation, and they can help increase climate mitigation support by moderates and conservatives in the United States who are critical to federal climate legislation (Vandenbergh and Gilligan, 2017;Gillis et al, 2021). But is the same true for adaptation?…”