Abstract
Collaborative actions between citizens and government agencies at the local level have the potential to raise community resilience to climate risks via social learning and increased social capital. However, for these actions to succeed, community members’ values, norms and risk perceptions must support collaborative action and be accompanied by self-efficacy. This paper develops a theoretical framework linking these concepts and applies the framework to a collaborative climate risk project in Singapore, using qualitative data from focus group discussions. We find that pro-social values are a strong enabling factor for residents to engage in collaboration, but that perceptions of low collective efficacy are a potential barrier. In particular, we find that the relative competence of the government leads to a perception of “exemptionalism,” which undermines individuals’ intentions to devote resources to collaborative action.
Highlights
Global climate change is expected to generate and exacerbate risks such as flash flooding, heat waves and storm surges at the local level
In order to understand the range of attitudes, beliefs and intentions of community members and their links to individuals’ willingness to engage in collaborative climate risk interventions, we employed a focus group discussion method that was guided by grounded theory approaches to data collection and analysis
The focus group discussion (FGD) revealed the presence of enabling factors favouring collaborative actions to manage local climate risks
Summary
Global climate change is expected to generate and exacerbate risks such as flash flooding, heat waves and storm surges at the local level. Collaborations open up opportunities for residents to create bonds with one another and with government agencies, contributing to social capital, which helps individuals and groups to resist shocks and recover more quickly and completely from disasters [5]. These attributes of collaborative action to address local climate risks are recognised by stakeholders, and a growing number of government agencies across geographies are exploring projects of this kind
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