Expected climate change consequences and their role in explaining individual risk judgments

RESEARCH ARTICLE Expected climate change consequences and their role in explaining individual risk judgments Thea GregersenID1,2,3*, Rouven Doran1, Gisela Bo¨ hm1,4, Hans-Ru¨ diger Pfister5 1 Department of Psychosocial Science, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway, 2 Centre for Climate and Energy Transformation (CET), University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway, 3 Norwegian Research Centre (NORCE), Bergen, Norway, 4 Department of Psychology, Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences, Lillehammer, Norway, 5 Institute of Experimental Industrial Psychology (LueneLab), Leuphana University Lu¨ neburg, Lu¨neburg, Germany * thgr@norceresearch.no Abstract This study examines what individuals expect will be the most important impacts of climate change on their respective countries, and how these expectations relate to individual risk judgments. Open-ended responses from representative samples in four European countries (each n > 1000), were sorted into six categories: expectations of climate change leading to changes in attitudes and goals, human activities, emissions and pollution, environmental changes, impacts on humans, or few or no impacts. The results showed that the most fre- quently mentioned climate change impacts were related to environmental changes. Although most results were consistent across the UK, Norway, Germany, and France, some differences were identified. For example, respondents in the UK and Norway more fre- quently mentioned changes in human actions and activities among the most important cli-

mate change impacts. We also found differences between demographic groups; men, those in the oldest age groups, and those placing themselves further right on the political spectrum were more likely to expect few or no consequences of climate change on their country. Addi- tional analyses examined relationships between the six impact categories and two different measures of individual risk judgments. Those expecting climate change to lead to changes in attitudes and goals, environmental changes, or impacts on humans reported higher levels of worry about climate change and expected more negative effects on their country. Climate change worry, but not the evaluation of how positive or negative effects will be on one’s country, was further related to the number of consequences mentioned in response to the open-ended question and the specificity conveyed. Introduction Direct and indirect consequences of climate change range from biodiversity loss, flooding and heat waves, to changes in energy production, infrastructure and agriculture [1]. The extent to which people perceive climate change as a risk is associated with their beliefs about its PLOS ONE PLOS ONE | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0281258 February 15, 2023 1 / 15 a1111111111 a1111111111 a1111111111 a1111111111 a1111111111 OPEN ACCESS Citation: Gregersen T, Doran R, Bo¨hm G, Pfister H- R (2023) Expected climate change consequences and their role in explaining individual risk judgments. PLoS ONE 18(2): e0281258. https:// doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0281258 Editor: Darrell A. Worthy, Texas A&M University,

UNITED STATES Received: August 30, 2022 Accepted: January 18, 2023 Published: February 15, 2023 Copyright: © 2023 Gregersen et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Data Availability Statement: All relevant data are within the paper and its Supporting Information files. Funding: EPCC was funded by the JPI-Programme and associated grants from Cardiff University Sustainable Places Research Institute, School of Psychology and the Economic & Social Research Council, ESRC [grant number ES/M009505/1]. It was co-funded by France’s Agence Nationale de la Recherche [grant number ANR-14-JCLI-0003] and by Institut Symlog de France; under the KLIMAFORSK programme of the Norwegian