https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4511-1532
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ABSTRACT
Responding effectively to climate change requires an understanding of what shapes people’s individual and collective sense of agency and responsibility towards the future. It also requires transforming this understanding into political engagement to support systems change. Based on a national representative survey in Sweden (N = 1,237), this research uses the novel SenseMaker methodology to look into these matters. More specifically, in order to understand the social and institutional prerequisites that must be in place to develop inclusive climate responses, we investigate how citizens perceive their everyday life and future, and the implications for their sense of responsibility, agency, and political engagement. Our research findings show how citizens perceive and act on climate change (individually, cooperatively, and by supporting others), their underlying values, beliefs, emotions and paradigms, inter-group variations, and obstacles and enablers for change. The findings reveal that, in general, individual and public climate action is perceived as leading to improved (rather than reduced) wellbeing and welfare. At the same time, climate anxiety and frustration about structural and governance constraints limit agency, whilst positive emotions and inner qualities, such as human–nature connections, support both political engagement and wellbeing. Our results shed light on individual, collective, and structural capacities that must be supported to address climate change. They draw attention to the need to develop new forms of citizen involvement and of policy that can explicitly address these human interactions, inner dimensions of thinking about and acting on climate change, and the underlying social paradigms. We conclude with further research needs and policy recommendations.
Key policy insights
In general, citizens perceive increased individual and public climate action as leading to improved (rather than reduced) wellbeing and welfare.
Effective responses to climate change require addressing underlying social paradigms (to complement predominant external, technological, and information-based approaches).
Such responses include increasing policy support for:
o learning environments and practices that can help individuals to discover internalized social patterns and increase their sense of agency and interconnection (to self, others, nature);
o institutional and political mechanisms that support citizen engagement and the systematic consideration of human inner dimensions (values, beliefs, emotions and associated inner qualities/capacities) across all sectors of work, by systematically revising organizations’ vision statements, communication and project management tools, working structures, policies, regulations, human and financial resource allocation, and collaboration; and
o nature-based solutions and other approaches to support the human–nature connection.
Acknowledgements
This research was supported by two projects funded by the Swedish Research Council Formas: i) Mind4Change (grant number 2019-00390; full title: Agents of Change: Mind, Cognitive Bias and Decision-Making in a Context of Social and Climate Change), and ii) TransVision (grant number 2019-01969; full title: Transition Visions: Coupling Society, Well-being and Energy Systems for Transitioning to a Fossil-free Society). We thank the projects’ advisory board members and colleagues who provided insights and expertise that supported our administrative, managerial and scientific work with the SenseMaker research methodology and online tool. We are particularly grateful to Anne Caspari (EZC Partners) and Prof. Karen O’Brien (University of Oslo).
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 The classification into inner and outer, which marks the boundary between what is ‘inside’ (a subject) and what is ‘outside’ (a subject), is artificial and applied for simplicity. Inner dimensions are actually inter-subjective (e.g. socially defined) and qualities/capacities are enacted (e.g. cultivated and expressed in relationship to other subjects and the world at large).
2 The squared residual of the Pearson's Chi-Squared test for this association is 274.35 (p = 0.0000), with a count above 4 indicating a value significantly different from random chance.
3 The squared residual of the Pearson's Chi-Squared test for this association is 17.37 (p = 0.0000), with a count above 4 indicating a value significantly different from random chance.
4 The correlation between D4 and D5 is positive. It is especially prominent for stories associated with positive feelings (r2 = 25.9%) and highly significant: p value <0.001; see Supplementary Material Table 8.1.
5 The correlation between D3 and D5 is positive and highly significant: p value <0.001; see Suppl. Material Table 8.1.
6 This involves better communication to nurture human potential and inform about i) the political agency individuals have for supporting transformation across scales, ii) their legal responsibility, and iii) what governmental and non-governmental agencies do to support transformation.