Investigators:

Simon Niemeyer, Kersty Hobson, Paul t’Hart, Will Steffen, Janette Lindesay, Brendan Mackey

Social Adaptation to Climate Change in the Australian Public Sphere

A comparison of individual and group deliberative responses to scenarios of future climate change

This project responds to a pressing need for in-depth insight into Australia’s capacity to respond positively to climate change. It directly addresses a knowledge gap regarding possible individual and collective behavioural responses to climate change. By exploring the scope for producing more positively and timely responses, this project will contribute to creating pathways for constructive social adaptation. The project is grounded in the social sciences but is cross-disciplinary. It includes a strong natural science component that will construct scenarios of potential future climate change. These scenarios will be used to measure how exposure to risks associated with climate change impact on the perceptions, attitudes, and intended behaviour of members of the public. Scenarios will be presented to 200 participants through semi-structured interviews. Three-quarters of this sample will then participate in policy deliberations to test the effects of group dynamics and exposure to new information. The remaining 50 participants will act as a control group by not taking part in these deliberations. All participants will later be re-interviewed, to examine any behavioural changes and changes in responses to scenarios over time.

Specific aims of the project are to:

• Understand potential responses to climate change within the Australian community.
• Develop a series of regionally-scaled biophysical climate change scenarios that reflect the best available scientific knowledge about future climate, inclusive of the likely flow-on effect for species, ecosystems and environmental services (such as water supply).
• Using results from the public responses to the scenarios, to elaborate and add social dimensions to projected impacts.
• Construct a simulated public sphere using formal deliberative processes to contrast responses and projected emission behaviours to non-deliberative settings.
• Construct policy formulations within the deliberating groups.
• Provide policy insight into potential adaptive behaviour.

In addressing these objectives key questions are: (1) what is the impact of the rate and nature of climate change in Australia on individual participants’ intentions to take positive action to both mitigate and adapt to climate change; (2) and does deliberation (simulating deep engagement with the issue and group interaction approximating high levels of social capital) stimulate positive reflection that improves both adaptive and mitigative behaviour? The project will use the results of deliberation in the form of policy recommendations — accompanied by sophisticated analysis of the results — as a policy relevant output. It will also actively engage with the relevant policy communities in Australia through interviews and dissemination of results through a policy forum.
The project builds on UK-based pilot research by Niemeyer and Hobson. It will enhance existing research networks within the ANU, creating new inter-disciplinary opportunities by bringing together a strong team including 2 political scientists/theorists with environmental research backgrounds (Niemeyer with John Dryzek as a collaborator), a policy specialist/political psychologist (t’Hart) and a human geographer (Hobson): together with a team of natural scientists, including a climate impact specialist (Steffen), a climatologist (Lindesay); and a environmental biogegrapher (Mackey). The nature of the research design will mean that each team member has a clear and definable task that will be coordinated with the rest of the group. This collaboration will potentially extend internationally to a parallel USA case study (undertaken with colleagues at Northern Arizona University) currently under submission with the National Science Foundation that will adopt similar a methodology, enabling unique comparative analysis.

More information about the project (methods and findings so far) can be found here.

A call for partners in the project can be found here.

Start Date: January 2008

End Date: 2010

Working Papers, Publications etc.