Digital and competing information sources: Impact on environmental concern and prospects for international policy cooperation

Vladimir Udalov,Paul J J Welfens

doi:10.1007/s10368-021-00503-8

Vladimir Udalov, Paul J J Welfens

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1007/s10368-021-00503-8

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Abstract

The environmental concern of people in industrialized and developing countries is analyzed. Using the 2010–2014 wave of the World Value Survey (WVS), the main purpose of our analysis is to investigate the effect of different information sources on the affective, conative and behavioral components of the environmental concern of people in the developed and developing countries. As independent variables, we use a set of economic data as well as information-related variables, including the internet, mobile phones, TV, radio and newspapers. The digital variables of the internet and mobile phones turn out to have a highly significant impact on environmental concern so that digital modernization of countries should have pro-environmental impacts as a side effect of internet and mobile phone services expansion. With the developing countries catching-up vis-à-vis the OECD countries in the field of mobile phone density and internet density, respectively, one may expect better prospects for cooperation between developed and developing countries since attitudes/the environmental concern of people in developed and developing countries will become more similar. For international green cooperation and climate change policy progress, the new findings presented herein are crucial.

Highlights

Many industrialized as well as newly industrialized countries (NICs) have adopted policy initiatives aimed at improving the quality of the environment or at fostering some form of green growth and the development of new, CO2-light, technologies which could help to achieve the stabilization of the climate and to avoid global warming, respectively
Middle-of-the-road, or centrist, parties as well as special issue parties with a strategic focus on environmental issues – for example the Green parties in many European Union (EU) countries – represent the interests of voters in the field of environmental quality and combatting global warming; in the elections for the European Parliament in 2019, the Green Party in Germany, in particular, increased its voting share and the exit polls of the German expert electoral analysis group Forschungsgruppe Wahlen indicated that a large share of voters hold the view that the EU should become more active in climate change policy (Forschungsgruppe Wahlen 2019)
Since we are considering information & communication technology (ICT) variables as explanatory variables, one should be careful in the interpretation of the results since ICT is raising per capita income, but at the bottom line we show a distinct impact of digital variables and the internet, respectively

Summary

Introduction

Many industrialized as well as newly industrialized countries (NICs) have adopted policy initiatives aimed at improving the quality of the environment or at fostering some form of green growth and the development of new, CO2-light, technologies which could help to achieve the stabilization of the climate and to avoid global warming, respectively. In the published report of the IPCC (2021), it has clearly been argued that the natural science base findings further underline the analysis of previous IPCC research and even suggest that the 1.5 degrees limit for global warming might already become a reality by 2030, earlier than was anticipated in previous reports From this perspective, the attitude of people with respect to sustainability and climate change issues in different countries are of critical relevance for international cooperation and policy progress; and the relevance of alternative modes of diffusion of crucial information seem to be quite important in this context

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