Abstract
Environmental protection activities based on digital technology have cultivated many online green users (OGUs) and may become a critical means to combat global climate change. This paper explores individuals’ motivation to participate in online environmental protection activities and whether the activities have significantly increased individuals’ intention to participate in global collaboration on climate change. Taking Ant Forest as an example, this paper first summarized 14 trigger reasons for users’ participation in online environmental protection activities through interviews, then surveyed 600 OGUs through questionnaires, and studied the behavioral motivation from the four dimensions of environmental awareness, social motivation, online immersion, and global cooperation intention by using a structural equation model. The study found that both environmental awareness and social motivation had significant positive promotional effects on OGUs’ online immersion, and environmental awareness was higher than social motivation. Environmental awareness as a long-term motivation is conducive to the achievement of long-term climate goals, and social motivation is focused on short-term entertainment functions. There is a significant positive interactive relationship between environmental awareness and social motivation under the effect of digital technology, which jointly promote the improvement of OGUs’ online immersion, and online immersion is conducive to enhancing OGUs’ global cooperation intention. This study demonstrated that digital technology can effectively improve individuals’ intention to protect the environment and found a means to quickly identify the best OGUs (most willing to participate in global cooperation), which provided a new opportunity to inspire greater public participation in the global action against climate change.
Highlights
Human activities have resulted in an increase in greenhouse gas concentrations that has led to climate change and its uncertain consequences (Meehl et al, 2000; Gifford, 2011; Bai et al, 2018; Holmgren et al, 2019)
This study aims to explore the behavioral motivation of online green users (OGUs) and discuss whether online green activities encourage their enthusiasm for environmental issues as well as whether their online immersion originates from increased environmental awareness
This study demonstrates that under the context of digital technology, individuals can see the real-time planting of seedlings through satellites, care for seedlings in simulated situations online, and earn digital green certificates; public participation in climate change mitigation activities can be significantly increased after these aspirations are fulfilled
Summary
Human activities have resulted in an increase in greenhouse gas concentrations that has led to climate change and its uncertain consequences (Meehl et al, 2000; Gifford, 2011; Bai et al, 2018; Holmgren et al, 2019). This scientific consensus has been reached, reducing emissions under this substantial environmental pressure requires a gradual process (Figueres et al, 2017); the public and industry need to be aware of the seriousness of the problem and participate in mitigation (Oreskes, 2004)
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