Global climate change will bring new risks to the UK, such as more extreme weather patterns. Governing bodies are promoting adaptation strategies as a means to improve resilience and recovery, thus reducing the amount of harm caused by impacts. Successfully implemented strategies will require broad public support for adaptation policies, as well as large scale uptake of individual adaptive actions. Communications targeted at the general public will therefore need to convey clear and relevant risk information and targeted and accessible adaptation options. This research sought to test people’s understanding of concepts widely used in expert led communications about climate impacts and adaptation strategies.
Twenty-two in-depth interviews were carried out in 2013 and 2014 with members of the UK public. Participants were selected for their diverse climate change beliefs, as expressed on a pre-survey. Interviewees were asked to discuss ideas that they associated with 1) climate change impacts, and 2) adaptation.
We found that the interviewee’s understanding of these concepts was markedly different from that of the expert community. First, consideration of likely impacts extended from the very small-scale, such as icy roads, through to long-term, global threats, such as mass migration. Second, across all respondents there was low awareness of adaptation as an available means to respond to climate change risks. People used the term interchangeably with ‘mitigation’ particularly in regards to their own actions taken. Third, nearly a third of interviewees (n. 7) voiced unprompted signifiers that they felt uncomfortable with the terminology, e.g. apologising for ‘wrong’ answers. Fourth, while most accepted that the UK will need to make changes in response to climate change impacts, a significant minority group (n. 6) were more sceptical. These interviewees raised the issue of scientific uncertainty, expressing both distrust and frustration towards expert groups.
Despite the interviewee’s diversity of climate change opinions, misunderstanding of the key concepts was a common finding across the sample. The interviewees were not clear on the impacts likely to affect the UK and most considered themselves not to be personally at risk. The interviewees were also not clear on the difference between mitigating climate change and adapting to its impacts. This highlights the need for greater clarity around expert concepts which are used in communications targeted at the general public. Improving understanding of these fundamental concepts will be important in ensuring that official communications are accurately received and can provide useful guidance.