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Can Concern for Air Quality Improvement Increase the Acceptability of Climate Change Mitigation Policies?

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Climate Change and Health

Part of the book series: Climate Change Management ((CCM))

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Abstract

Air quality and climate change policies are finding new common grounds today as increasing social complexity requires better integration of separate knowledge domains. This chapter addresses the complex relationship between these two policy domains, their scientific background and the related acceptability issue, which varies substantially among countries and social groups and is influenced by social and cultural factors. The first section of this chapter describes the relationship between air quality and climate change policies. Indeed, global CO2 reduction objectives require complex adaptations of socio-economic behaviours that might not directly appear to be related to pollution reduction or to improvement the exposure of citizens to harmful pollutants. Recent studies, however, have confirmed that air pollution and its impacts are one of the main environmental concerns for citizens, even if relevant differences in public perception between countries still remain. This section also addresses the ambiguities and conflicts that characterise communication between experts and citizens. The second section briefly describes recent scientific evidence that shows the possibility of coupling air quality and climate change mitigation benefits with policies targeted at specific pollutants called short lived climate forcers (SLCF). The third section spells out some preliminary research questions on the acceptability of these policies and their complex relationship with individual interests and cultural contexts. Linking air quality to climate change could be a win-win strategy to increase the social acceptability of specific policies and their implementation if knowledge and communication gaps between citizens and policy makers will be reduced.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    More details on the website of the Joint Research Centre Unit of Air Quality and Climate of the EU http://ccaqu.jrc.ec.europa.eu/acu.php and on the national environmental agencies. The earlier approach was established in the UK; see: http://uk-air.defra.gov.uk/assets/documents/reports/aqeg/fullreport.pdf

  2. 2.

    One important example is the “Bodmers report” (Royal Society Report 1985).

  3. 3.

    The authors suggest that this pattern might reflect doubts about the efficiency of road pricing. Nevertheless, respondents’ attitudes in the survey differ significantly between cities.

  4. 4.

    “Loss aversion is an important property that distinguishes prospect theory (Tversky and Kahneman 1992) from expected utility theory (von Neumann and Morgenstern 1944) by introducing a reference-dependent valuation of outcomes, with a steeper slope for perceived losses than for perceived gains” (IPCC 2014, p. 162)

  5. 5.

    However, measures reducing SLCPs have to be seen as complementary rather than a substitute for early and stringent CO2 mitigation (Rogelj et al. 2014).

  6. 6.

    In September 2014, a new wave about Europeans’ environmental attitudes has been published by Eurobarometer (Special Eurobarometer 416/Wave EB81.3), but, as they report, “the list and number of concerns presented to the respondents has been modified from the previous survey” (p. 12). Two alternatives have been deleted, namely: climate change and man-made disasters.

  7. 7.

    The questionnaire allowed multiple answers to the same question (From the following list, please pick the five main environmental issues that you are worried about). For this analysis, we opted to use respondents as a unity of analysis, rather than the answers, as Eurobarometer normally does.

  8. 8.

    The most quoted concern in 2011 was man-made-disaster followed by water pollution. See Eurobarometer EB75.2, available at http://ec.europa.eu/environment/pdf/EB_summary_EB752.pdf

  9. 9.

    www.eea.europa.eu/themes/air/interactive/pm10-interpolated-maps. Data available from 2006 to 2010.

  10. 10.

    Sefira (Socio-economic implications for individual responses to Air Pollution Policies in EU +27) is an FP7 Cooperation Project (2013–2016) under the scientific coordination of Prof. Yuri Kazepov and Michela Maione, co-authors of this paper (www.sefira-project.eu).

  11. 11.

    Namely: EU parliament priorities; to be in favour of innovative policies for contrasting climate change; importance of environmental protection.

  12. 12.

    This index has been calculated using three indicators: (1) level of information; (2) environmental sensibility; (3) environmental commitment.

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Acknowledgements

This paper has been made possible thanks to the FP7 SEFIRA Cooperation Project (2013–2016), which was financially supported by the European Union under the 7th Framework Program; Theme: ENV 2013.6.5-2 [ENV.2013.6.5-2] Mobilising environmental knowledge for policy and society Grant agreement: 603941 (Project Title: SEFIRA). The views expressed here are solely those of the authors.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Urbino, Urbino, Italy

    Vittorio Sergi PhD, Paolo Giardullo & Michela Maione

  2. University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria

    Yuri Kazepov

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  1. Vittorio Sergi PhD
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Correspondence to Vittorio Sergi PhD .

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  1. Faculty of Life Sciences, Sect., Hamburg University of Applied Sciences, Hamburg, Germany

    Walter Leal Filho

  2. CFE University of Coimbra, Universidade Aberta and, Porto, Portugal

    Ulisses M. Azeiteiro

  3. Universidade Aberta, Porto, Portugal

    Fátima Alves

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Sergi, V., Giardullo, P., Kazepov, Y., Maione, M. (2016). Can Concern for Air Quality Improvement Increase the Acceptability of Climate Change Mitigation Policies?. In: Leal Filho, W., Azeiteiro, U., Alves, F. (eds) Climate Change and Health. Climate Change Management. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-24660-4_6

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