Report on Stage III of the ESPACE Project
Adapting to Climate Change: Raising Community Awareness in West Sussex February 2007

MEASURING AWARENESS OF CLIMATE CHANGE

Report on Stage III of the ESPACE Project

Adapting to Climate Change: Raising Community Awareness in West Sussex

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

1.INTRODUCTION2

1.1Aim of Research2

1.2Methodology2

1.3Contents of this report3

1.4Report elements3

2.THE QUANTITATIVE RESEARCH PHASES4

2.1Methodology4

2.2Questionnaires4

3.DETAILED AND COMPARATIVE RESULTS5

3.1Causes and effects5

3.2Effects on residents and businesses8

3.3Observed and expected changes in temperature/ rainfall 10

3.4What is being done in West Sussex 11

3.5The 10% Challenge 12

1INTRODUCTION

1.1Aim of research

Rosslyn Research Limited was been commissioned in 2004 by West Sussex County Council to measure awareness of climate change amongst residents and the business/ rural community in West Sussex.

The aim of the research was to provide quantifiable measures of awareness across different geographic and demographic segments of the West Sussex population, and simultaneously to provide indications as to how climate change communications can best be planned by West Sussex County Council (WSCC).

The aim of the qualitative and tracking research was to explore what the concept of climate change means to various strands in the community and secondly to match these to expectations of the effects of climate change.

1.2Methodology

In logistical terms, the backbone of the research was a quantitative study.

Two large-scale surveys of around 1,300 to 1,400 residents and other sectors of the community were conducted. The first of these was undertaken in May 2004, and the second survey was carried out in the autumn of 2006.

The 2004 quantitative research was reported on in January 2005. The report that follows covers the survey of late 2006, together with comparative results from the two research phases.

Both stages of the research in 2004 and 2006 covered a ‘control’ sample of residents in Hampshire.

Part of the initial research phase in 2004 was qualitative – a series of focus group discussions and in-depth interviews. The aims of this qualitative phase were:

  • To provide insight into the issues surrounding the phrase “climate change” and the actual phenomenon itself.
  • To provide guidance on the quantitative phase of the research: to suggest what should be asked and how

The 2004 qualitative research was also reported on in January 2005 and has not been covered again in this report.

1.3Contents of this report

This report will discuss only the quantitative research in 2004 and 2006, together with observations on trends between the two survey phases.

Conclusions will be of a three-fold nature:

  • Comparative results from the two phases on awareness of climate change issues and perceived causes/ effects of climate change
  • Findings on the success of the communications efforts by the Espace team in West Sussex
  • Findings on the initiatives run by WSCC, ie. the 10% Challenge.

1.4Report elements

This report is based on the presentation of results provided in top-line form in December 2006 and the fuller presentation given in mid-January 2007. This presentation is appended to the report.

In addition a full set of computer tables has been provided in both printed and electronic form.

The computer analysis tables for the 2004 survey were provided with the January 2005 report and are referred to from time to time for comparative purposes.

The analysis in the computer tables gives separate figures for:

•Total sample

•West Sussex residents

•Participants in the 10% Challenge

•Business community

•Rural community

•Control sample in Hampshire

•Additional analysis of demographics (age, socio-economic group, household

location, household size)

2THE QUANTITATIVE RESEARCH PHASES

2.1Methodology

Part 2 of Stage I consisted of 1,350 personal and telephone interviews with residents, the rural economy and businesses in West Sussex and 200 residents of Hampshire.

West Sussex was divided into 4 areas [A 23 corridor/Rural/ Coastal East and Costal West]

  • 1,050 interviews with residents with quotas by age and gender
  • 440 urban/ 370 small town/ 330 rural
  • 210 interviews with businesses with quotas by 6 industry sectors.
  • 100 interviews with the farming community
  • “Control’ sample of 200 residents in Hampshire

Stage III consisted of 1,350 personal and telephone interviews with residents, the rural economy and businesses in West Sussex including 200 residents of Hampshire.

  • 830 interviews with residents with quotas by age and gender
  • 120 interviews with businesses with quotas by 6 industry sectors.
  • 100 interviews with the farming community/ rural economy
  • 100 interviews with participants in WSCC events and the 10% Challenge
  • “Control’ sample of 200 residents in Hampshire

2.2 Questionnaires

In essence there were four types of question:

  1. demographic questions
  1. cause and effect questions, to establish what constitutes climate change in the

opinion of respondents and other communities, and whether they think climate

change is occurring

  1. quantitative questions, to find out how close the match is between people’s

expectation of temperature and rainfall changes

  1. policy and communication questions – who should lead and who should

communicate on the issue.

5.Additional questions in 2006 to cover initiatives by WSCC, in particular the

10% Challenge.

Copies of the questionnaires used are available on request.

3DETAILED AND COMPARATIVE RESULTS

3.1 Causes and effects

A key element to be tested in the quantitative survey was the extent to which various themes are seen as central or peripheral to the perception of climate change.

In particular, since many participants in the initial focus groups had explicitly said that it’s hard to distinguish cause and effect in this area, we wanted to explore and track that issue quantitatively.

This was tested by presenting number of possible causes and effects of climate change to respondents. These were rated by respondents “out of 10”:

  • For causes, ‘1’ indicated that “it has no impact at all on climate change” and ‘10’ that “it is a major cause of climate change”.
  • For effects, ‘1’ indicated that “it won’t happen or doesn’t matter” and ‘10’ that “it is or will be a major effect of climate change”.
  • Therefore, the higher the rating, the more important is the factor as a perceived cause of effect of climate change.

The presentation charts are based on the ‘average scores’ computed for the most interesting sub-groups. For more detailed information, the computer tables give results for each ‘point’ from 1 to 10, as well as demographic and sub-group splits.

The possible causal factors which respondents were asked to rate were:

  • Hole in the ozone layer
  • Too much building/ construction on flood plains
  • Deforestation in the UK
  • Pollution by industry
  • Cutting down of rain forest in South America and Asia
  • Pollution caused by cars
  • Greenhouse gas emissions/greenhouse effect
  • Lack of recycling of household waste
  • Overpopulation

These factors were chosen to represent a mix of generally-agreed causes, wider contributory factors, and factors which might better be see as exacerbating factors rather than causes of climate change.

The possible effects were:

  • Hotter summers
  • Wetter winters
  • New diseases, e.g. malaria
  • Droughts
  • Floods
  • Changes in planning laws
  • Changes in agriculture
  • Wetter summers
  • Warmer winters

3.1.1 Perceives causes of climate change

The evidence from the large-scale survey is in fact that people in general have a reasonably accurate picture of the underlying causes and major expected and observed effects. Deforestation and greenhouse gas emissions are identified as major causal factors. [Slide 13]

In the details, though, some systematic perceptual inaccuracies can be seen. In particular, “pollution caused by the car” is rated as slightly more significant than “greenhouse gas emissions”. This suggests that the more general, and highly emotive, concept of pollution looms larger as a factor in the minds of the general West Sussex population than it does for the expert community.

On these two factors, the changes since 2004 are relatively minor.

Similarly, the ratings for “cutting down of rainforest in South America and Asia” and for “hole in the ozone layer” are higher amongst the general public than they would be amongst the expert community. These are both highly pictorial and emotive factors, and it is noteworthy though not surprising that they loom larger as causes of climate change amongst the general public.

In 2006, “cutting down of rainforest in South America and Asia” remains as the most important perceived cause of climate change with an average score of 8.13. This is a small rise from 7.97 since 2004.

The other major discrepancy between public and experts in 2004 was their estimation of the relative impacts of industry and transport. Overall, in 2004 respondents rate “the car” (and by extension, perhaps, all transport based on fossil fuels) as a more significant causal factor than industry.

This perception was ‘reversed in 2006, with “pollution by industry” now rated higher than “pollution by the motor car”.

Interestingly, there is a huge gap for the WSCC respondents between rainforest deforestation (rated as the most important factor) and deforestation in the UK (rated as least important). This has remained unchanged from 2004 to 2006.

Comparing the 2004 and 2006 results, we see a small increase only in perceived causes of climate change. In analysing the specific data, this is almost entirely due to a reduction in the number of ‘doubters’, ie. those who give a very low rating to the specific factor. This group, that essentially ‘denies’ the specific aspect as a cause of climate change, has dropped from around 10% of the West Sussex population to 4 – 5 %.

There are some variations between sub-groups, with the largest change (increase in awareness) shown for the rural economy.

The new group of 10% Challenge participants rate all factors consistently and often significantly higher than other residents, showing overall a far greater awareness of climate change causes.

3.1.2 Perceived effects of climate change

The survey results show that broadly the public expectation of climate change is in line with expert consensus. The five most prominent expected effects, in descending order in 2004, were:

  • Floods
  • Wetter winters
  • Hotter summers
  • Warmer winters
  • Droughts

The 2006 results show a different order and reflect the very dry winter of 2005/06 and the dry summer of 2006 [Slide 15]:

  • Hotter summers (+++)
  • Floods (++)
  • Droughts (+++)
  • Warmer winters (=)
  • Wetter winters (--)

The overall absolute scoring for effects is generally considerably lower than for causes. Residents remain less sure of the effects than the causes of climate change.

This would confirm the findings of the qualitative survey: that there is considerable doubt and disagreement as to what climate change will actually bring; but there is slightly stronger expectation of extreme weather than of any long-term increase in temperatures.

In both 2004 and 2006, the least-expected effects are “new deseases”, “wetter summers” and that there will be changes in planning laws. This may be considered an interesting indication of how little public awareness there is of the notion of long-term adaptation to climate change.

As with the perceived causes, there are fewer residents that ‘doubt’ the effects and say that they are unlikely to happen.

The sub-sector differences are much less marked than for perceived causes and are not significant. Even for the 10% Challenge segment, the differences are only significant for the top three factors.

3.2 Effects on Residents and Businesses: “How will climate change affect you?”

Here we again asked respondents to give a score of 1 to 10 to express how important various possible effects of climate change are to them. The list of possible effects, used in both survey waves were:

  • Increased coastal flooding
  • Warmer and wetter winters
  • Warmer and drier summers
  • Increased river flooding
  • Better weather
  • Water shortages
  • Less predictable weather patterns
  • Higher household insurance premiums
  • Advantages to agriculture in the UK
  • Higher fuel prices and energy costs
  • Increased risk of severe storms
  • More people taking summer holidays on the South Coast
  • Deterioration in health due to wetter and warmer winters
  • Hosepipe bans

Here, as can readily be seen, there is a mix of positive and negative outcomes, of varying degrees of seriousness. Also, the outcomes spread across a wide variety of types of change: general climatic changes, social changes, and microeconomic changes.

Applying a technique of examining correlations between answers, in 2004 we found a clear pattern of expectation. That is to say, the expected outcomes tend to fall into four groups; if a respondent strongly sees better weather as an outcome that will personally affect them, they are very likely also to expect warmer and drier summers. That is an unsurprising correlation, but the full grouping is interesting.

The four factor groups proved to be:

FLOODS

  • Increased river flooding
  • Increased coastal flooding

WARMER WEATHER

  • Warmer and wetter winters
  • Warmer and drier summers
  • Better weather

EXTREME WEATHER

  • Increased risk of severe storms
  • Greater fluctuation and changes in weather patterns
  • Water shortages

SOCIAL CHANGES

  • Higher household insurance premiums
  • Deterioration in health due to wetter and warmer winters
  • Advantages to agriculture in the UK
  • Hosepipe bans
  • Higher fuel prices and energy costs
  • More people taking summer holidays on the South Coast

This is a crude but reliable snapshot of the four different ways in which people in West Sussex conceptualise climate change.

The perceived effects on the population are generally greater in 2006, yet on many factors the perceived effect scores remain relatively low [Slides 21 - 36].

Significant increases in scores are recorded for the last two of the above factors groups and specific factors within that:

EXTREME WEATHER

  • Water shortages (an increase in the score from 6.34 to 7.63)

SOCIAL CHANGES

  • Higher household insurance premiums (an increase from 6.09 to 6.69)
  • Hosepipe bans (an increase from 5.16 to 6.77)
  • Higher fuel prices and energy costs (an increase from 6.58 to 7.84)

The factors shown under ‘social changes’ include those that effect people very directly through increased costs.

Certain demographic factors cut across this – for example, people living on the coast are much more likely to expect to be affected by increased coastal flooding and by an increase in the number of people taking holidays on the south coast. For another example, older people are much less likely to be concerned about a deterioration in health due to warmer and wetter winters. But in general there are clear patterns of expectation cutting across all sub-groups.

The largest changes from 2004 to 2006 are in the perceptions by the rural economy, especially on weather changes.

In the new sub-group for 2006, the 10% Challenge participants, awareness of effects on their household is generally much higher.

3.3 Observed and Expected Changes in Temperature and Rainfall

We asked in detail how much warmer and wetter the weather had become over the last ten years, in summer and winter, and how much warmer and wetter the weather was expected to be in ten years’ time. [Slides 17 – 20]

The observation in 2004 was that winters have been and will continue to be warmer and wetter. Summers would be warmer and drier.

In 2006, we see a distinct change only on rainfall in the winter, but a reinforced opinion on the other aspects. Summers and winters are now much warmer; both summers and winters are much drier.

This reflects the exceptionally dry winter and summer of 2005 – 2006.

Expectations of the future are very much in line with the recent observations.

The actual degree to which warming is thought to have occurred and is expected to continue over the next decade is much higher than expert opinion. Here we can see one of the major communication problems about the issue of climate change. So, to the extent that people believe that global warming and climate change are occurring, they overestimate the speed and intensity of the process.

3.4What is being done in West Sussex

We asked whether enough was being done to address climate change. The details are on slides 37 to 44. The specific aspects covered were:

•Building of coastal defences

•Building of river flood defences

•Building of storm drains

•Developing alternatives to using the car

•Helping people/ businesses to reduce their effects on the environment

•Management of water supplies

•Helping people to plan for and adapt to climate change

In general, the sense that enough is being done is much higher for local ‘physical’ measures (shown in plain text above) than of the supportive measures. On these measures, the perceived changes from 2004 to 2006 are relatively minor, and scores have fallen bak to indicate that the perception is that even less is now being done.

On these physical measures, there are some differences between sub-groups, but none are really significant. This even applies to the directly affected residents, such as coastal residents for the “building of coastal defences’. It also applies to the 10% Challenge participants who generally think that not enough is being done on any of these aspects.

As in 2004, the younger age group (under 30) gives much higher scores. In other words, they think that more is being done in West Sussex.

The aspects on “developing alternatives to using the car”, the recorded score was and remains very low, although there is a slight improvement from 3.46 to 4.03

On the two ‘support’ factors, “helping people/ businesses to reduce their effects on the environment” and “Helping people to plan for and adapt to climate change”, scores in 2004 were very low indeed at 3.11 and 3.35 respectively. The perceptions on both these aspects have improved dramatically to 4.72 and 4.42, although they remain at low levels.

This would indicate that the support programme in raising climate change awareness has registered a good effects in West Sussex. Scores for the 10% Challenge participants are a little higher than for all other residents, but scores from the rural and business economies remain exceptionally low. Here, the levels recorded for the under 30 age group are encouraging.

On the physical and support factors, and particularly on “developing alternatives to using the car”, much more can and should be done.

Residents are not sure where the help and information should come from.