Public perceptions and support of climate intervention technologies across the Global North and Global South

Abstract

Novel, potentially radical climate intervention technologies like carbon dioxide removal and solar geoengineering are attracting attention as the adverse impacts of climate change are increasingly felt. The ability of publics, particularly in the Global South, to participate in discussions about research, policy, and deployment is restricted amidst a lack of familiarity and engagement. Drawing on a large-scale, cross-country exercise of nationally representative surveys (N = 30,284) in 30 countries and 19 languages, this article establishes the first global baseline of public perceptions of climate-intervention technologies. Here, we show that Global South publics are significantly more favorable about potential benefits and express greater support for climate-intervention technologies. The younger age and level of climate urgency and vulnerability of these publics emerge as key explanatory variables, particularly for solar geoengineering. Conversely, Global South publics express greater concern that climate-intervention technologies could undermine climate-mitigation efforts, and that solar geoengineering could promote an unequal distribution of risks between poor and rich countries.

Public attitudes and emotions toward novel carbon removal methods in alternative sociotechnical scenarios

“…Importantly, this was the case for all scenarios, therefore the additional sociotechnical information did not appear to assist participants in imagining the techniques. Similarly weak or unstable responses to information frames have also been found in other studies on novel climate interventions [20,78,79]. It may be that confronted with so much new information, not only about an unfamiliar technology but also an unfamiliar sociotechnical world, some of our participants experienced information overload.…”

Public perceptions on carbon removal from focus groups in 22 countries

“…We utilize a multi-methods framework combining a survey instrument with focus groups. The survey’s design (technological and geographic scope, methodology, materials) is described in Baum et al 88 . The focus groups form the basis of this paper, and the study design is described below.…”

“…We foreground that focus groups – reflecting small sample sizes, screening for particular characteristics, and potentially driven by emergent topics and dynamics particular to each group – should not be seen as (wholly) representative of a national public. Nationally representative results are the province of large-N surveys 88 . Here, we aim at the in-depth treatment and detail that comes with deliberation, and comparison with the wider public perceptions literature.…”

“…Forty-four focus groups (1 urban, 1 rural) were conducted in 22 countries worldwide, aiming at a roughly even split between countries in the global North and global South, geographic spread across all UN regional groups, and inclusion of regional powers. A prior stage deployed a survey instrument on carbon removal approaches in 30 countries – all 22 assessed here, as well as Canada, France, the Netherlands, Norway, Estonia, Greece, Denmark, Singapore, and Japan 88 . Constrained resources led to a refinement of scope and reduction of countries in which focus groups could be run.…”