Using the COVID-19 economic crisis to frame climate change as a secondary issue reduces mitigation support

Ecker, Ullrich K. H.; Butler, Lucy H.; Cook, John; Hurlstone, Mark J.; Kurz, Tim; Lewandowsky, Stephan

doi:10.1016/j.jenvp.2020.101464

Cited by 46 publications

(33 citation statements)

References 9 publications

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“…Some polling undertaken in 2020 finds, for the first time since 2012, a small decrease in the proportion of Australians supporting urgent action on climate change [ 16 ]. These findings implicate COVID-19 and the widespread disruption it has caused in the dip to concern about climate change, aligning with other research findings [ 79 ].…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 89%

Australian voters’ attitudes to climate action and their social-political determinants

Colvin

Jotzo

2021

PLoS ONE

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Australia is a relative laggard on climate policy, amidst social and political fractures despite rising support for climate policy in opinion polls. In the 2019 Australian federal election, which was dubbed the ‘climate election’, the opposition campaigned on comparatively ambitious climate action but the government was returned on a status quo policy. We explore the social-political determinants of climate attitudes and how they are positioned in relation to voting behaviour, in the context of the 2019 election. We use a large nationally representative survey of Australian voters (n = 2,033), and employ univariate and multivariate ordinal logistic regression models to uncover correlates. We find that a large majority of voters think it is important for Australia to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. However, the importance given to emissions reductions is sharply divided along lines of political party preference. Holding pro-climate action attitudes consistently correlates with voting for progressive political parties and having higher levels of education. We also find a strong age cohort divide, with younger people holding stronger pro-climate attitudes than older people, raising the question whether we are seeing the emergence of a new generation expressing strong pro-climate action and progressive political attitudes that will persist over time. We conduct population ageing scenarios to project changes to public opinion, by age group, into the future. These indicate that strong support for climate action would increase by about four percentage points over the coming decade as younger voters replace the old, if attitudes within cohorts remained fixed. We conclude that while cleavages in climate attitudes in Australia are set to continue, efforts to promote climate delay are bound to have a limited shelf life as a growing majority of voters accepts the need for climate action.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 89%

Australian voters’ attitudes to climate action and their social-political determinants

Colvin

Jotzo

2021

PLoS ONE

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“…To the best of our knowledge, no existing study has specifically addressed if and how individuals have changed their Pro-Environmental Behavior because of the spread of beliefs induced by the COVID-19 pandemic using the TPB framework; this represents the main contribution of our research. While it is possible that the COVID-19 experience has acted as a "trial run" for future engagement in the global climate crisis, it is also plausible that Pro-Environmental Behavior needs to take a "back seat" (e.g., [17] (p. 1), [55]). Recent studies have highlighted that the current COVID-19 pandemic has represented a learning experiment on how to cope with climate change [56], given that both situations suffer from the same behavioral biases [57][58][59][60].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…To date, few researchers have considered the human behavioral responses to linkages between climate change and COVID-19 [16]. Ecker et al [17] (p. 1) conducted an experiment in which they found that prioritizing the economic crisis triggered by COVID-19 and portraying climate change as an issue that should take a "back seat", effectively reduced climate-change concerns and diminished support for mitigation efforts. Similarly, Urban and Kohlova [18] analyzed the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on actual choices regarding environmentally friendly delivery options; in their experiment, they found the effects of the COVID-19 crisis on pro-environmental behaviors to be ambiguous, at best.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Applying the Theory of Planned Behavior to Examine Pro-Environmental Behavior: The Moderating Effect of COVID-19 Beliefs

2020

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The COVID-19 pandemic and climate change issues present evident interdependencies which justify the spread of connected beliefs. We examine possible changes in individuals’ pro-environmental behavior in light of this pandemic, using the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) framework. A questionnaire survey was submitted to the same sample of individuals, before and during the pandemic. Our evidence, based on Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM), shows that the COVID-19 pandemic has not led to a weakening in TPB construct relationships, or in related Pro-Environmental Behavior (PEB). Conversely, through our Partial Least Squares-Multi-Group Analysis (PLS-MGA), we show that individuals with greater awareness of interdependencies between the COVID-19 and climate change exhibit both higher Intention and reinforced Pro-Environmental Behaviors. This finding reveals interesting policy implications in terms of innovative behavioral drivers that should be employed to steer public support towards climate-oriented initiatives.

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“…Participants' concern about the COVID-19 pandemic was measured as a composite score based on participants' responses to four questions (e.g., "How severe do you think novel coronavirus will be in the U.S. general population as a whole?" on a 5-point Likert scale [1 = very mild; 5 = very severe]), following Ecker, Butler, Cook, Hurlstone, Kurz, & Lewandowsky (2020). All items are provided in the Supplement.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Refuting Spurious COVID-19 Treatment Claims Reduces Demand and Misinformation Sharing

MacFarlane

Tay

Hurlstone

et al. 2021

Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition

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The COVID-19 pandemic has seen a surge of health misinformation, which has had serious consequences including direct harm and opportunity costs. We investigated (N = 678) the impact of such misinformation on hypothetical demand (i.e., willingness-to-pay) for an unproven treatment, and propensity to promote (i.e., like or share) misinformation online. This is a novel approach, as previous research has used mainly questionnaire-based measures of reasoning. We also tested two interventions to counteract the misinformation, contrasting a tentative refutation based on materials used by health authorities with an enhanced refutation based on best-practice recommendations. We found prior exposure to misinformation increased misinformation promotion (by 18%). Both tentative and enhanced refutations reduced demand (by 18% and 25%, respectively) as well as misinformation promotion (by 29% and 55%). The fact that enhanced refutations were more effective at curbing promotion of misinformation highlights the need for debunking interventions to follow current best-practice guidelines.

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Using the COVID-19 economic crisis to frame climate change as a secondary issue reduces mitigation support

Cited by 46 publications

References 9 publications

Australian voters’ attitudes to climate action and their social-political determinants

Australian voters’ attitudes to climate action and their social-political determinants

Applying the Theory of Planned Behavior to Examine Pro-Environmental Behavior: The Moderating Effect of COVID-19 Beliefs

Refuting Spurious COVID-19 Treatment Claims Reduces Demand and Misinformation Sharing

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