Abstract
While scenarios are used extensively for communication about climate change mitigation, little is known about the interpretation of these scenarios by citizens. We conducted a cross-country empirical evaluation of scenario visualizations for global mitigation, using online surveys in Germany (N = 379), Poland (N = 223), and France (N = 225). Each respondent received visualizations of the required changes in global carbon dioxide emissions and composition of electricity supply (fossil fuels, nuclear, and renewable sources) for limiting global warming to 1.5 °C. We evaluated the effects of respondents’ demographics, prior beliefs, numeracy, and graph literacy on the reading accuracy and knowledge gains from the visualizations. We also included an experimental between-groups design on visualization format, where four groups received different graph formats (steep or gradual graphs with depictions of uncertainty ranges or scenario ensembles) and the fifth group received a table. Results showed that higher education level, numeracy, and graph literacy increased reading accuracy in all countries, while age reduced them. Respondents with prior beliefs about climate change mitigation that matched the information in the visualizations had also higher reading accuracy and knowledge gains. While the effects of different visualization formats were comparatively minor, customizing formats according to demographic and country differences was used to reduce adverse effects from these differences. These results emphasize the need to design visualizations that match characteristics of the intended audience and could inform better communication of climate change mitigation scenarios to non-expert audience.
Highlights
In the past decades, there is an ongoing call for improving commu nication of climate change research to policymakers and ex perts, and to society at large (Budescu et al, 2014; Corner et al, 2018; Pidgeon and Fischhoff, 2011; Weber et al, 2018)
Current ex amples of communications range from comprehensive assessments of the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC, 2018a, IPCC, 2014), reports and visual aids tailored to specific audiences such as schools (Rumjaun et al, 2018) and investors (CICERO, 2018), to the traditional communication channels of the media
While there is an acknowledged need for more user-specific guidelines for climate change communication based on empirical evidence (Elsawah et al, 2020; Pidgeon and Fischhoff, 2011; Trutnevyte et al, 2016), relatively little has been done for communicating about the options for climate change mitigation to citizens (e.g. Corner et al, 2018)
Summary
There is an ongoing call for improving commu nication of climate change research to policymakers and ex perts, and to society at large (Budescu et al, 2014; Corner et al, 2018; Pidgeon and Fischhoff, 2011; Weber et al, 2018). While there is an acknowledged need for more user-specific guidelines for climate change communication based on empirical evidence (Elsawah et al, 2020; Pidgeon and Fischhoff, 2011; Trutnevyte et al, 2016), relatively little has been done for communicating about the options for climate change mitigation to citizens Communication guidelines need to be adapted and evaluated for individual countries due to the likely differences in public awareness and opinion about mitigation, where, for example, the role of nuclear power can be perceived differently in
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