Despite several decades of research on more effectively communicating climate change to the general public, there is only a limited amount of knowledge about how young people engage with an issue that will shape and define their generation. We provide a thorough review of international studies in this area, drawing on survey data and qualitative research. The review is organized into two main sections. The first briefly situates young people's engagement with climate change relative to other concerns and examines levels of awareness, concern and 'scepticism' among this age group. The second focuses on four key determinants of effective climate change communication and assess whether young people differ in any appreciable way from research findings relating to the general population. The four factors are the role of values and worldviews in determining climate change views; the efficacy of 'information-based' interventions; the 'psychological distance' of climate change and message framing; and the role of trusted messengers. In the concluding section we discuss the implications for engaging young people more effectively and explore possibilities for future research. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. How to cite this article:WIREs Clim Change 2015Change , 6:523-534. doi: 10.1002 INTRODUCTION Y oung people are in a unique position as they face the reality of a changing climate. National and international legislation for mitigating climate change typically operates on decadal timescales, with many targets for decarbonization focusing on the 2020-2050 time period.1 As the generation whose adult lives will overlap most closely with this policy window, they are potentially best-placed to define the long-term societal response to climate change. Yet they are also the most vulnerable to the legacy of decisions made by the older generations. Although young people arguably have the most to gain and the most to lose in a changing climate, their voices are not prominent in the political, media, or cultural discourse on climate change 2 and (as the evidence presented in this review shows) engagement with climate change among this important demographic group is in many ways limited.While some studies have captured young people's views about climate change, there is very little existing research exploring ways in which this population could be more effectively engaged. There is, however, a much larger literature on environmental psychology that dates back to the 1960s and, more recently, 523environmental education theory, both of which provide valuable and relevant insights. While we situate the current review within this broader literature and draw from it on occasion, the focus is on evidence directly related to climate change and how people aged 12-25 engage with this issue specifically. We define 'young people' using this broad age category for two reasons. First, there is no universally agreed definition of 'youth,' and studies in this review that have described their sample using terms such as 'young adults' or 'young peop...
Abstract:The challenge of facilitating a shift towards sustainable housing, food and mobility has been taken up by diverse community-based initiatives ranging from "top-down" approaches in low-carbon municipalities to "bottom-up" approaches in intentional communities. This paper compares intervention measures in four case study areas belonging to these two types, focusing on their potential of re-configuring daily housing, food, and mobility practices. Taking up critics on dominant intervention framings of diffusing low-carbon technical innovations and changing individual behavior, we draw on social practice theory for the empirical analysis of four case studies. Framing interventions in relation to re-configuring daily practices, the paper reveals differences and weaknesses of current low-carbon measures of community-based initiatives in Germany and Austria. Low-carbon municipalities mainly focus on introducing technologies and offering additional infrastructure and information to promote low-carbon practices. They avoid interfering into residents' daily lives and do not restrict carbon-intensive practices. In contrast, intentional communities base their interventions on the collective creation of shared visions, decisions, and rules and thus provide social and material structures, which foster everyday low-carbon practices and discourage carbon-intensive ones. The paper discusses the relevance of organizational and governance structures for implementing different types of low-carbon measures and points to opportunities for broadening current policy strategies.
The local level has gained prominence in climate policy and governance in recent years as it is increasingly perceived as a privileged arena for policy experimentation and social and institutional innovation. However, the success of local climate governance in industrialized countries has been limited. One reason may be that local communities focus too much on strategies of technology‐oriented ecological modernization and individual behavior change and too little on strategies that target unsustainable social practices and their embeddedness in complex socioeconomic patterns. In this paper we assess and compare the strategies of “low‐carbon municipalities” (top‐down initiatives) and those of “intentional communities” (bottom‐up initiatives). We were interested to determine to what extent and in which ways each community type intervenes in social practices to curb carbon emissions and to explore the scope for further and deeper interventions on the local level. Using an analytical framework based on social practice theory we identify characteristic patterns of intervention for each community type. We find that low‐carbon municipalities face difficulties in transforming carbon‐intensive social practices. While offering some additional low‐carbon choices, their ability to reduce carbon‐intensive practices is very limited. Their focus on efficiency and individual choice shows little transformative potential. Intentional communities, by contrast, have more institutional and organizational options to intervene in the web of social practices. Finally, we explore to what extent low‐carbon municipalities can learn from intentional communities and propose strategies of hybridization for policy innovation to combine the strengths of both models.
The chapter provides insights into the different characteristics and manifestations of energy poverty—a condition that prevents the achievement of socially and materially necessary levels of domestic energy services. On the one hand, the discourse on energy poverty in developed countries (known as “fuel poverty”) is discussed (especially in the European Union), focusing on different forms of definitions and measurement, coping strategies, and attempts to combat the problem. On the other hand, the discourse on energy poverty in developing countries is outlined, highlighting especially rural electrification processes and gender relations. It is shown that energy poverty is deeply embedded in wider social, economic, political, and cultural structures, reflecting inequalities both within and across nations. Therefore, the chapter concludes that measures and interventions to tackle energy poverty must take into account wider societal structures and power relations in order to achieve a just and sustainable energy system and society.
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