Abstract
The study aims to reveal Australian households’ perceptions of climate change and their preferences for mitigation action. A web-based survey was conducted in November 2008 in which over 600 households from the state of New South Wales were asked for their willingness to bear extra household expenditure to support the ‘Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme’, an emissions trading scheme proposed by the Australian government. The results of the study can be summarized in four key findings. First, respondents’ willingness to pay for climate change mitigation is significantly influenced by their beliefs of future temperature rise. Support for the policy increased at a decreasing rate as the perceived temperature change rose. Second, perceptions of policy failure have a significant negative impact on respondents’ support for the proposed mitigation measure. The higher the perceived likelihood that the measure would not deliver any outcome, the lower was the likelihood that respondents would support the policy. Third, respondent preferences for the proposed policy are influenced by the possibility of reaching a global agreement on emissions reduction. Sample respondents stated significantly higher values for the policy when the biggest polluting countries implement a similar scheme. Finally, respondents’ willingness to take action against climate change, both at the national and household level, is found to be influenced by their level of mass-media exposure. Particularly, those respondents who watched ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ were significantly more likely to act for climate change mitigation than others.
Article PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.
References
Australian Bureau of Statistics (2009) 2008 year book of Australia. Australian Bureau of Statistics, Canberra
Berk RA, Fovell RG (1999) Public perceptions of climate change: a willingness to pay assessment. Climatic Change 41:413–446
Berrens RP, Bohara AK, Jenkins-Smith HC, Silva CL, Weimer DL (2004) Information and effort in contingent valuation surveys: application to global climate change using national internet samples. J Environ Econ Manag 47:331–363
Cameron TA (2005) Individual option prices for climate change mitigation. J Public Econ 89:283–301
Carson R, Groves T (2007) Incentive and informational properties of preference questions. Env Res Econ 37:181–210
CSIRO (2008) Regional temperature projections in Australia to 2100 for three climate cases, data prepared for the Garnaut climate change review. CSIRO, Aspendale
CSIRO, Australian Bureau of Meteorology (2007) Climate change in Australia: technical report 2007. CSIRO
Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency (2008) Carbon pollution reduction scheme: Australia’s Low Pollution Future, White Paper, Volume 1, December 2008. http://www.climatechange.gov.au/publications/cprs/white-paper/cprs-whitepaper.aspx
Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency (2010) National greenhouse gas inventory 2007—Kyoto protocol accounting framework. http://www.ageis.greenhouse.gov.au/
Garnaut R (2008) The Garnaut climate change review: final report, Commonwealth of Australia. Cambridge University Press, Melbourne
International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) (2007) IPCC fourth assessment report: climate change 2007. http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/syr/ar4_syr.pdf
Karl TR, Trenberth KE (2003) Modern global climate change. Science 302:1719–1723
Krinsky I, Robb AL (1986) On approximating the statistical properties of elasticities. Rev Econ Stat 68:715–719
Lee JJ, Cameron TA (2008) Popular support for climate change mitigation: evidence from a general population mail survey. Env Res Econ 41:223–248
Lowe T, Brown K, Dessai S, de França Doria M, Haynes K, Vincent K (2006) Does tomorrow ever come? Disaster narrative and public perceptions of climate change. Public Underst Sci 15:435–457
Macmillan DC, Hanley N, Buckland S (1996) Contingent valuation of uncertain environmental gains. Scot J Polit Econ 43:519–533
Nolan JM (2010) “An Inconvenient Truth” increases knowledge, concern, and willingness to reduce greenhouse gases. Environ Behave. doi:10.1177/0013916509357696
Poe GL, Severance-Lossin EK, Welsh MP, (1994) Measuring the difference (X–Y) of simulated distributions: a convolutions approach. Am J Agric Econ 76(4):904–915
Ready R, Whitehead J, Blomquist G (1995) Contingent valuation when respondents are ambivalent. J Environ Econ Manag 29:181–197
The Commonwealth Treasury (2008) Australia’s low pollution future: the economics of climate change mitigation. http://www.treasury.gov.au/lowpollutionfuture/report/downloads/ALPF_consolidated.pdf
United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) (2008) GHG data from UNFCCC. http://unfccc.int/ghg_data/ghg_data_unfccc/time_series_annex_i/items/3814.php
Viscusi WK, Zeckhauser RJ (2006) The perception and valuation of the risks of climate change: a rational and behavioral blend. Climatic Change 77:151–177
Wilson KM (1995) Mass media as sources of global warming knowledge. Mass Commun Review 22(1–2):75–89
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
Open Access This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0), which permits any noncommercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and source are credited.
About this article
Cite this article
Akter, S., Bennett, J. Household perceptions of climate change and preferences for mitigation action: the case of the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme in Australia. Climatic Change 109, 417–436 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-011-0034-8
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-011-0034-8