Public Perceptions of Institutional Responsibility in Climate Change Risk in Baltic Nordic Countries

Abstract

Tackling climate change requires collective, cross-borders actions and local solutions for mitigation measures. Variety of actors are involved in climate change adaptation and mitigation, ranging from local communities to the global supranational institutions. People tend to perceive individual action as failing to cope with climate change (e.g. outlined in Lorenzoni and Pidgeon, 2006) and therefore ascribe high responsibility to the institutional level. This article will analyze how the public in Baltic -Nordic countries perceive the institutional responsibilities in climate change adaptation and mitigation. This article is based on data of Special Eurobarometer (459), conducted in 2017 and the questions analyzed in this article are related to concerns about climate change and the perception of institutional responsibilities in tackling climate change (institutions: national governments, European Union, business and industry, regional and local authorities; and environmental groups). The local, national and global institutions are perceived as having different responsibilities and impacts in tackling climate change. Also, the perceptions of institutional and individual responsibility varies across the countries. Results indicate that climate change is perceived as one of the top three most serious global issues in Baltic -Nordic countries as well as the concern about climate change in those countries is increasing. Regarding public perceptions of institutional responsibility related to climate change risks, most people in EU member states indicate national governments as having highest responsibility. However, there are significant differences comparing the perception of public in Nordic and Baltic States.

CLIMATE CHANGE INFORMATION ON INTERNET BY DIFFERENT BALTIC SEA REGION LANGUAGES: RISKS OF DISINFORMATION & MISINTERPRETATION

“…Baltic States climate change topic is prescribed as political issue, with no personal responsibility in it. Balžekienė et al (2008) and Budžytė and Balžekienė (2018) support the same findings. Opposite situation appears in Slavic countries, lack of political and governmental initiative solving climate change problems is a huge challenge in these countries.…”

“…In Baltic Sea Region (BSR) climate change awareness increasing. However the levels of information perception are different in Baltic -Nordic countries (Budžytė and Balžekienė, 2018). Kažys (2016) found that the climate change information content in the internet holds higher quality in Western BSR countries than in Eastern ones.…”

Cultural types and the perception of current environmental risks by local communities of the Baltic Sea region

“…Cli mate change ranks first (51% of respondents mentioned it), followed by air pol lution (46%) and the growing amount of waste (40%). 2 These results vary by country, as well. The Nordic states of the Baltic region are most concerned about climate change (70% in Denmark, 68% in Sweden, 63% in Germany and Fin land); Poles are worried about air pollution; the growing amount of waste is the number one issue in Lithuania (65%), Latvia (61%), and Estonia (54%).…”

“…1 Attitudes of European citizens towards the environment, Special Eurobarometer 468, available at: http://data.europa.eu/88u/dataset/S2156_88_1_468_ENG (accessed 21.04.2020). 2 Ibid. 3 Ibid.…”

Willingness to share information for energy efficiency: exploring differences and drivers across the Nordic countries

“…The main variable analyzed is the willingness of people to share their personal information securely to improve energy efficiency. Different variables are used to develop and frame the analysis, the selected items for the model are similar to those routinely used in environmental studies with the Eurobarometer datasets [10,43,44,[53][54][55][56][57][58][59][60][61][62][63]. As a novel aspect and contribution of the present study is that the latest Eurobarometer dataset item on willingness to share personal information for energy efficiency has yet to be operationalized at the time of this writing, particularly the question: "Public services could be improved if people shared some of their personal information.…”