The Five Canadas of Climate Change: Using audience segmentation to inform communication on climate policy

Finally, the Dismissive audience is the most convinced that climate change is not occurring with a plurality being somewhat or very confident that the phenomenon is not happening (48%). Consequently, all of them reject the fact that climate change is happening and that these changes are caused by human activities. No less than half of the Dismissive believe that climate change will never harm people living in Canada. This group is similar to the Alarmed in their feeling of being informed about the issue. When asked how informed they believe themselves to be about climate change and global warming, about 40% of them say they feel very informed. Of all groups, they are the least likely to report any form of behavioural engage- ment with respect to climate change. Examining the socio-demographic makeup of the five segments provides additional infor- mation to better understand how each audience differs from another. Compared to national averages, our results show that the Alarmed are more likely to be left-wing (28% vs. 17%) women (57% vs. 51%) with a graduate or professional degree (42% vs. 31%). The Alarmed are also more likely than average to express vote intentions for the Liberal Party of Canada (36% vs 31%) or the Green Party of Canada (11% vs. 6%), and less likely to indicate support for the Conservative Party of Canada (12% vs. 26%). Alarmed are also much more likely than the national average to report being “very interested” in politics (50% vs. 32%). At the other end of the spectrum, we find that socio-demographic distinctions are stark

when looking at the Dismissive group. Compared to national averages, the Dismissive are more likely to live in Alberta (24% vs. 11%) and less likely to live in Ontario (30% vs. 38%) or Quebec (12% vs. 24%). Relative to the full sample, the Dismissive are more likely to be English-speaking (76% vs. 63%) men (84% vs. 49%), with a plurality on the right side of the political spectrum (39% vs. 11%). Similar to the Alarmed (51%), a majority of the Dismissive (57%) say they are very interested in politics. However, unlike the other audiences, they are rel- atively uniform in their electoral choice, with a strong majority expressing a preference for the Conservative Party of Canada (77%). Comparing across segments, we find fewer socio-demographic features that distinguish the Concerned from the Doubtful. Not surprisingly, these two groups–which are more moderate in their positions–are more likely to be found at the center of the political spectrum (42% in both cases). A plurality of the remaining Concerned are either at the center-left (13%) or at the left (17%), while the remaining Doubtful self-identify at the center-right (13%) or right (17%). Compared to the Alarmed (42%), Concerned (32%) and Dismissive (31%), the Doubtful are less likely to have a graduate or professional degree (19%). We also found some differences in terms of the regional distribution of these audiences. Relative to the Concerned, the Doubtful are more likely to live in Alberta (19% vs. 8%), and less likely to live in Ontario (33% vs. 41%) or Quebec (21% vs. 27%). Communicating around carbon taxes

Next, we review results from the analysis of messaging effects with respect to carbon tax sup- port. Before proceeding to our core empirical analysis using Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regression modeling, we present descriptive statistics with mean value comparisons of atti- tudes toward the policy for each of the eight treatment groups (Table 4). Because of the highly heterogeneous distribution of the audiences–with the Concerned accounting for as much as 45% of the respondents, and the Disengaged and Dismissive making up for only 5% and 8% of the sample–the number of observations per treatment is relatively low for some segments, especially the Disengaged and Dismissive (with 0 to 16 respondents per treatment). This is consistent with the results of our post hoc sensitivity analysis–which indicated that our design was sufficiently powered to detect small to medium effects among the Alarmed, Concerned PLOS ONE The Five Canadas of Climate Change PLOS ONE | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0273977 November 23, 2022 10 / 21