The value of a climate march: Do climate marches affect perceived values and personal climate action

Abstract

Climate change poses immediate environmental threats. Although many care about the environment (i.e., endorse biospheric values), too little climate action is still taken. It has been argued that one reason for this is that individuals often underestimate others’ biospheric values, which demotivates them to act. We propose that climate marches have the potential to prevent and correct such underestimation by making a group of climate marchers with strong biospheric values salient and increasing awareness of the widespread endorsement of biospheric values among national citizens. To investigate this, we studied personal biospheric values, perceived biospheric values of climate marchers and national citizens, and individuals’ engagement in climate action just before and after a large climate march in the Netherlands, among a sample that was aimed to be national representative (valid nT1 = 648, nT2 = 502). Individuals reported themselves and climate marchers to have strong biospheric values, while national citizens were seen as having substantially weaker biospheric values. Multiple regression analyses indicated stronger personal biospheric values and stronger perceived biospheric values of climate marchers – but seemingly weaker perceived biospheric values of Dutch citizens – were associated to stronger climate action engagement. Perceived biospheric values of Dutch citizens did increase over the march, whereas perceived biospheric values of climate marchers decreased. Individuals did not engage in more climate action over the climate march, as one the abovementioned associations already suggested. We argue that such effects may occur in the longer term in contexts where the national identity is more salient and relevant.