New social science research takes a fresh look at polar bears and two degrees
Policies must focus on keeping global average temperature rise below two degrees; people adopt ‘sustainable’ lifestyles because they are concerned most for the environment. Some ideas have become central to communicating about climate change.
But new research is starting to challenge this kind of accepted statement. Carbon Brief meets two social science researchers raising some fairly basic questions about how we understand and talk about climate change.
Two degrees
The idea that “dangerous climate change” begins at two degrees of average global warming is common currency in policy debates around climate change. But is focusing on such a blunt measurement the best way to help people to understand the issue? And what about the dangers posed by climate change before the world achieves two degrees of average global temperature rise?
Few of the scientists, policymakers and journalists Dr Christopher Shaw interviewed for his new paper on the ‘two degree limit’ are complimentary about the concept in private. One interviewee calls the limit’s role in policymaking “theological” – an article of faith.
According to Shaw, the idea that efforts to reduce emissions should focus on keeping warming below two degrees above pre-industrial levels – considered a useful tool for communicating difficult science – has failed to drive emissions reductions, and stifled discussion about climate change.
Shaw first became interested in finding out more about the claim of a two degree dangerous limit to climate change following the European heatwave of 2003. He tells Carbon Brief:
“I feared that it seemed likely that climate change would become dangerous before the world had warmed by more than two degrees centigrade. However, I wasn’t seeing any challenges to the two degree mantra in any of the journalistic, NGO or policy literature I was reading. I wanted to find out why.”
So how did the two degree concept come about, and has it evolved? Policymakers, journalists and scientists Shaw interviewed seem rather cynical about its rise to ubiquitousness. Shaw says:
“The interviewees confirmed choosing how much climate change is too much is a subjective choice, based on a range of factors, in which science plays only a minor role.”
Interviewees told Shaw that while scientific views on the level at which climate change starts to have dangerous effects have evolved, this fact is rarely communicated to the wider public.
But is there merit in using an imperfect term to help communicate complex science to a wider audience? Some of Shaw’s interviewees admitted that they use the two degrees limit to communicate climate change, even though they know this level of warming will still be extremely disruptive. Shaw says those he spoke to saw it as a useful “anchoring” device – a fudge, but useful for framing climate science in a way that links it to policymaking and helps communicate complex ideas.
Shaw says this belief doesn’t play out. His research shows newspapers rarely cover the two degree limit, and where they do, they tend to communicate it as an absolute “scientific fact”, not an evolving conversation between scientists and policymakers. And this is Shaw’s major criticism of the two degree limit – it has been described in opaque terms, and doesn’t allow the public, policymakers and scientists to discuss climate change in a democratic way. Says Shaw:
“It is particularly important that there is a more open and honest appreciation of the uncertainties in our knowledge of future climate change risks. Continuing to claim that science has identified that climate change will not become dangerous until the planet has warmed by two degrees, when weather extremes are intensifying and the Arctic ice disappearing after 0.8 degrees of warming, will only further undermine public confidence in what governments are telling them about climate change and the need to move rapidly to a low carbon future.”
People, not polar bears
It appears to be another basic maxim that showing people pictures of polar bears is the best way to get them to engage with the environmental issues raised by climate change. But a detailed look at what motivates people to adopt ‘green’ measures suggests that people’s motivations might be a bit broader than just reacting to charismatic megafauna.
Dr Rachel Howell was interested in what motivates people to change their behaviour. For her research, she decided to start with people who’d already adopted a low carbon lifestyle.
Previous studies focusing on the factors that persuade people to adopt green behaviours concluded that early childhood experiences and a feeling of connectedness to nature were important. But Howell says such surveys didn’t dig deep enough – or missed out important factors in behaviour such as religion or spirituality.
In a series of in-depth interviews, she teased out a wide range of possible motivating factors, coming up with a ranking of values that appeared to have motivated people to change their lifestyles, reproduced here. (See the research for more details of the methodology.)
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Howell tells us:
“‘[S]ocial justice’ and ‘equality’ were higher rated overall than ‘protecting the environment’ and other biospheric values. So basically I learned that people who have adopted lower-carbon lifestyles are motivated by concerns about people, rather than polar bears.”
Also important to her interviewees was the idea of a sense of community. As one respondent, Luke, says:
“I see myself as an active participant in the community, and I see trying to live a lower-carbon lifestyle as something that is helpful to the community as a whole.”
The research suggests that simply talking about the good of the environment isn’t likely to spur people to action – or at least, it’s not the most important factor for people who have already made changes to their lives. Howell tells us:
“I do think that if even ‘early adopters’ of lower-carbon lifestyles are not motivated by ‘the environment’ per se, it is unlikely that the ‘general population’ will be. So one lesson is that it may well be more useful for climate change campaigners to make more links with human rights/welfare organisations, and those that promote altruistic values, and get them to understand the impacts that climate change will have for the people they care about, than to focus on impacts on the natural world.”
Howell, and Shaw presented their findings at the British Sociological Association’s event, ‘Energy, climate and society: insights from early-career researchers’, which is associated with the association’s climate change study group.