How do young people engage with climate change? The role of knowledge, values, message framing, and trusted communicators

Abstract

Despite several decades of research on more effectively communicating climate change to the general public, there is only a limited amount of knowledge about how young people engage with an issue that will shape and define their generation. We provide a thorough review of international studies in this area, drawing on survey data and qualitative research. The review is organized into two main sections. The first briefly situates young people's engagement with climate change relative to other concerns and examines levels of awareness, concern and 'scepticism' among this age group. The second focuses on four key determinants of effective climate change communication and assess whether young people differ in any appreciable way from research findings relating to the general population. The four factors are the role of values and worldviews in determining climate change views; the efficacy of 'information-based' interventions; the 'psychological distance' of climate change and message framing; and the role of trusted messengers. In the concluding section we discuss the implications for engaging young people more effectively and explore possibilities for future research. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. How to cite this article:WIREs Clim Change 2015Change , 6:523-534. doi: 10.1002 INTRODUCTION Y oung people are in a unique position as they face the reality of a changing climate. National and international legislation for mitigating climate change typically operates on decadal timescales, with many targets for decarbonization focusing on the 2020-2050 time period.1 As the generation whose adult lives will overlap most closely with this policy window, they are potentially best-placed to define the long-term societal response to climate change. Yet they are also the most vulnerable to the legacy of decisions made by the older generations. Although young people arguably have the most to gain and the most to lose in a changing climate, their voices are not prominent in the political, media, or cultural discourse on climate change 2 and (as the evidence presented in this review shows) engagement with climate change among this important demographic group is in many ways limited.While some studies have captured young people's views about climate change, there is very little existing research exploring ways in which this population could be more effectively engaged. There is, however, a much larger literature on environmental psychology that dates back to the 1960s and, more recently, 523environmental education theory, both of which provide valuable and relevant insights. While we situate the current review within this broader literature and draw from it on occasion, the focus is on evidence directly related to climate change and how people aged 12-25 engage with this issue specifically. We define 'young people' using this broad age category for two reasons. First, there is no universally agreed definition of 'youth,' and studies in this review that have described their sample using terms such as 'young adults' or 'young peop...

Engaging Youth in Climate Resilience Planning with Social Media: Lessons from #OurChangingClimate

“…#OurChangingClimate addresses the need for local perspectives by utilizing digital tools to establish a community-driven network that (1) Provides participants with the ability to better visualize the direct impacts of climate change within their surrounding landscapes; (2) Creates opportunities to contribute images and narratives to community-generated neighborhood resilience mapping; and, (3) Encourages youth and other community-members to participate in on-going local conversations about climate change resilience. This is consistent with key strategies for youth engagement detailed in the literature review: re-scaling climate conversations to local impacts, re-framing impacts within participant existing concerns, encouraging youth-led engagement, and finally building a sense of capacity to respond to threats (Corner et al, 2015).…”

“…In particular, narrative-based approaches offer an alternative approach to adaptation planning: "[It] offers an innovative, holistic approach to a better understanding of socio-ecological systems and the improved, participatory design of local adaptation policies… it can significantly inform public engagement, deliberation and learning strategies-features of systemic adaptive governance" (Paschen & Ison, 2013, p. 1083. Youth engagement in these strategies has already revealed new paradigms for understanding vulnerability and resilience within a community (Haynes & Tanner, 2015;Peek, 2008;Tanner et al, 2009), and new digital technologies are diversifying and broadening strategies for that engagement (Corner et al, 2015;Senbel et al, 2014). #OurChangingClimate represents an alternative approach to engaging youth in climate resilience planning, exposing the nuanced and personal ways in which youth experience their built environments and understand vulnerability to climate change.…”

“…The image and descriptive text contributions to social media models the technique of photovoice, with the added benefit of allowing sharing between a much broader network that includes participants' families and peers. It also allowed the project team to meet participants 'where they are' with tools they already engage with and enjoy (Corner et al, 2015;Senbel et al, 2014).…”

“…Climate scientists similarly describe impacts on decadal time scales in ranges from 2020 to 2100, as do regional and local resilience planning. Climate impacts, carbon targets, and adaptation strategies frequently establish a timescale that will play out for a generation of youth that are simultaneously the best positioned to define our societal responses to, while being the most vulnerable to, climate change (Corner et al, 2015). Despite this, current notions of climate change among U.S. youth appear consistent with adult conceptualizations: it is rarely the top priority.…”

“…The psychological distance of climate change is manifested both geographically and temporally: long time frames of projected impacts, and the physical distance between many Americans and the sites of some of the more catastrophic climate-related events, are often too great to make the issues feel relevant (Gilbert, 2006). Furthermore, international surveys suggest that the general public believe taking action on climate change is primarily the responsibility of governments, whilst simultaneously expressing low levels of trust in them (Corner et al, 2015). Finally, fear tactics that characterize climate change as 'a terrible, immense, and apocalyptic problem' are successful at capturing people's attention, and thus often utilized by popular media as a result; however, such an approach also leaves people feeling hopeless and unable to see their own relationship to the issue (Lorenzoni, Nicholson-Cole, & Whitmarsh;O'Neill & NicholsonCole, 2009).…”