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Uncertain Climate: An Investigation into Public Scepticism
about Anthropogenic Climate Change
Wouter Poortinga
12
*, Alexa Spence
3
, Lorraine Whitmarsh
2
, Stuart Capstick
2
,
Nick F. Pidgeon
2
1
Welsh School of Architecture, Cardiff University, Bute Building, King Edward VII Avenue, Cardiff,
CF10 3NB, Wales, UK
2
School of Psychology, Cardiff University, Tower Building, Park Place, Cardiff, CF10 3AT, Wales, UK
3
Horizon Digital Economy Research, School of Psychology, University of Nottingham, Sir Colin
Campbell Building, University of Nottingham Innovation Park, Triumph Road, Nottingham, NG7 2TU,
England, UK
*Corresponding author
Welsh School of Architecture, Cardiff University, Bute Building, King Edward VII Avenue, Cardiff,
CF10 3NB, Wales, UK; Tel: +44(0)29 2087 4755; Fax: +44(0)20 2097 4623; E-mail:
PoortingaW@cardiff.ac.uk
Acknowledgements
This research was jointly funded by the UK Economic and Social Research Council
(grant RES-062-23-113) and the Leverhulme Trust (F/00 407/AG).
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2011.03.001
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Abstract
This study presents a detailed investigation of public scepticism about
anthropogenic climate change in Britain using the trend, attribution, and impact
scepticism framework of Rahmstorf (2004). The study found that climate scepticism
is currently not widespread in Britain. Although uncertainty and scepticism about the
potential impacts of climate change were fairly common, both trend and attribution
scepticism were far less prevalent. It further showed that the different types of
scepticism are strongly interrelated. Although this may suggest that the general
public does not clearly distinguish between the different aspects of the climate
debate, there is a clear gradation in prevalence along the Rahmstorf typology.
Climate scepticism appeared particularly common among older individuals from
lower socio-economic backgrounds who are politically conservative and hold
traditional values; while less common among younger individuals from higher socio-
economic backgrounds who hold self-transcendence and environmental values. The
finding that climate scepticism is rooted in people’s core values and worldviews may
imply coherent and encompassing sceptical outlook on climate change. However,
the results that attitudinal certainty is mainly concentrated in non-sceptical groups
suggest that climate sceptical views are not held very firmly. The implications of the
findings for climate change communication and engagement are discussed.
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1. Introduction
1.1. Background
Climate change is arguably one of the greatest challenges the world is facing
in the 21st century. The threats posed by climate change have set the international
community the almost impossible dilemma of severely limiting the emissions of
greenhouse gases or to face the considerable risks associated with global
temperature rises. Many have argued that the targets in greenhouse gas reductions
as agreed under the Kyoto protocol are unlikely to be sufficient to avoid dangerous
climate change. The UK Government has therefore set itself the ambitious longer-
term domestic target of 80% reduction in all greenhouse gases by 2050 in the legally
binding Climate Change Act (Defra, 2008). Meeting this target will require major
shifts towards low-carbon energy production as well as significant reductions in the
demand for energy.
Public perceptions and attitudes are critically important to both the supply and
the demand side of the transition to a low-carbon economy. On the supply side,
public acceptance of new and innovative energy facilities such as power stations and
new grid infrastructure will play a key role. We know from a range of past case-
studies that community opposition can lead to delays or even cancellation of plans
and construction (Boholm & Löfstedt, 2004; Toke, 2005). In particular in the UK there
has been frequent environmental controversy and at times strong public opposition
across a number of renewable energy developments, including onshore and offshore
wind energy (Devine-Wright, 2005), biomass energy (Upreti, 2004), and tidal power
(SDC, 2008). Other low-carbon infrastructure developments such as carbon capture
and storage (Shackley et al., 2005) and the proposed renewal of UK nuclear power
sector (Pidgeon et al., 2008) are also likely to bring public controversy. Indeed, the
UK government sees the reluctance of the public to accept new energy
developments in their community as one of the main challenges to the transition to a
low carbon economy (DTI, 2003). On the demand side, perceptions of the need to
take mitigating action against climate change, and of the ability to act on this, can be
key precursors to personal behaviour change and compliance with wider policies
aimed to motivate such changes (Spence & Pidgeon, 2009; American Psychological
Association, 2010).
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Previous research has shown that awareness and self-reported knowledge of
climate change has been rising steadily over the last two decades (Defra, 2002;
Defra, 2007; Upham et al., 2009), with awareness of the terms ‘climate change’ and
‘global warming’ being near universal in the UK since the early 2000s (Lorenzoni et
al., 2006; Whitmarsh, 2009; Whitmarsh et al., 2011). A survey conducted in 2005
found that an overwhelming majority of the British public thought that the world’s
climate is changing and that they consider this as one of the most pressing
environmental threats (Poortinga et al., 2006). However, recent research suggests
that scepticism and uncertainty about climate change has increased in both Europe
and the US in the last couple of years (Eurobarometer, 2009; Department for
Transport, 2010; Leiserowitz et al., 2010a); a development that may have been
bolstered by the controversies surrounding leaked emails from scientists working at
the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia and errors made in glacial
melting forecasts in the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel
on Climate Change (IPCC; Berkhout, 2010), as well as perhaps the unusually harsh
European winter of 2009-2010 (cf. Joireman et al, 2010). It is important to have a
detailed understanding of the extent and the reasons why people hold climate
sceptical views, as public scepticism and uncertainty about the existence of
anthropogenic climate change may become a major barrier to the development of a
more sustainable society. It will be a difficult task to convince the public to make
sacrifices in terms of their lifestyle and to support renewable energy developments in
their community if they do not believe the climate is changing or will have a real
impact on their lives.
1.2. Public Scepticism and Uncertainty about Climate Change
When exploring sceptical beliefs among the general public, it has to be noted
that scepticism is an imprecise term that has multiple meanings given the complex
multi-faceted nature of the climate debate. Rahmstorf (2004) makes a useful
distinction between trend sceptics, who deny there is such a thing as an upward
trend in global temperatures, attribution sceptics, who accept that the world’s climate
may be changing but do not think that it is caused by human activity, and impact
sceptics, who agree that the world’s climate is changing as a result of human activity
but do not think it will lead to substantial detrimental impacts. Furthermore, differing
terms, such as scepticism, cynicism, denialism, uncertainty and ambivalence, which
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are all key characteristics of public responses to the current climate change debate,
are often used interchangeably. For example, Dunlap and McCright (2010) use the
term ‘denial’ in the same fashion as Rahmstorf uses ‘scepticism’ to describe disbelief
in the existence, anthropogenic nature, or seriousness of climate change. Within the
literature a lively debate has emerged as to whether ‘unconvinced camps’ should be
called ‘climate deniers’, ‘sceptics’, or ‘contrarians’ (O’Neill & Boykoff, 2010; Anderegg
et al., 2010a;b), all of which seem to refer to a “small coterie of individuals” who are
“waiting to pounce on any scientific uncertainty” (Nature editorial, 2010), whose
views and expertise are incongruent with mainstream climate science consensus
(Anderegg & Harold, 2009), or who vocally challenge what they see as a false
consensus of mainstream climate science through critical attacks on climate science
and eminent climate scientists (McCright, 2007).
In terms of public scepticism about climate change, it is important to
distinguish between different attitudinal terms such as scepticism, uncertainty, and
ambivalence. Whereas the concept of scepticism refers to strongly held disbeliefs in
or a rejection of the tenets of mainstream climate science, uncertainty refers to a
lower subjective sense of conviction or validity as to whether climate change ‘really’
exists, is caused by human activity, and/or will have major impacts (cf. Petty &
Krosnick, 1995). People who express attitudinal uncertainty should therefore not be
confused with those who have more active sceptical disbeliefs. Indeed, research by
Whitmarsh (in press) suggests that whereas an outright rejection of the notion of
anthropogenic climate change is not widespread, the proportion of the public who
express some degree of uncertainty about climate change is far higher. Attitudinal
ambivalence is in the social psychology literature often defined as the degree to
which an attitude object is evaluated positively and negatively at the same time
(Thompson et al., 1995; Jonas et al., 2000), although in many cases it is used to
describe any contradictory ‘evaluations’ someone holds on a particular issue (cf.
Breckler, 1994). In other words, people who are ambivalent about climate change
possess feelings, attitudes, or beliefs that are in tension with one another (Carolan,
2010). It is, however, difficult to clearly distinguish between the different attitudinal
terms in the way they are used by the general public to describe their own personal
views, as well as in the way they are measured in attitudinal research. For example,
Poortinga and Pidgeon (2006) have shown that measures of attitudinal ambivalence
and uncertainty may be compounded into a single dimension. This suggests that
