Citizen-led emissions reduction: Enhancing enjoyment and understanding for diverse citizen engagement with air pollution and climate change decision making

Abstract

Diverse citizens need to be involved in net zero transitions to ensure policy interventions do not entrench inequalities for people from minoritised or disenfranchised groups and ensure public engagement with rapid social changes. This paper illustrates the importance of designing enjoyable engagement activities aimed at segmented citizen and community groups, to ensure a broad cross-section of society can participate in environmental debate and policymaking. We analysed an evaluation sample of 857 people, representing 10.3% of the 8302 people directly engaged with the ClairCity project from six European countries. Women were under-represented in our activities, and younger participants preferred non-traditional forms of engagement like online games. Across all activities, multiple regression analyses found statistically significant relationships between younger age groups and enjoyment, and a positive correlation between enjoyment and understanding of air quality. Behaviour change intention was also significantly positively correlated to understanding, with 74% of participants indicating they would make a behaviour change to improve air quality. While climate change and air pollution are serious issues, public engagement to raise awareness and improve participation in policymaking does not have to be. To fully realise citizen-led emissions reduction, policymakers need to co-create engagement activities which are enjoyable, inclusive, and attractive to diverse citizens representing regional demographics. Ultimately, the more enjoyable and relevant the engagement activities, the more understanding people gain about the issues, and are therefore more likely to make a change to individual or community behaviours to reduce air pollution and carbon emissions and improve public and environmental health.