Abstract
This paper considers how farmers perceive and respond to climate change policy risks, and suggests that understanding these risk responses is as important as understanding responses to biophysical climate change impacts. Based on a survey of 162 farmers in California, we test three hypotheses regarding climate policy risk: (1) that perceived climate change risks will have a direct impact on farmer's responses to climate policy risks, (2) that previous climate change experiences will influence farmer's climate change perceptions and climate policy risk responses, and (3) that past experiences with environmental policies will more strongly affect a farmer's climate change beliefs, risks, and climate policy risk responses. Using a structural equation model we find support for all three hypotheses and furthermore show that farmers’ negative past policy experiences do not make them less likely to respond to climate policy risks through participation in a government incentive program. We discuss how future research and climate policies can be structured to garner greater agricultural participation. This work highlights that understanding climate policy risk responses and other social, economic and policy perspectives is a vital component of understanding climate change beliefs, risks and behaviors and should be more thoroughly considered in future work.
Highlights
Global climate change will require socio-ecological systems to adapt across multiple geographic, time, and ecological scales (Adger et al, 2005)
We extend the use of the term “climate policy risks” to capture how farmers perceive and respond to future climate change policies
Our work shows that climate policy risk is the largest threat perceived by farmers, and is linked systematically to past environmental policy experiences as well as overall views on climate change
Summary
Global climate change will require socio-ecological systems to adapt across multiple geographic, time, and ecological scales (Adger et al, 2005). Research on agricultural systems has focused heavily on weather patterns, the frequency and intensity of extreme events (Rosenzweig et al, 2001), and time horizons that require a new set of adaptive behaviors (Jackson et al, 2011). Additional research has examined the potential economic impacts of climate change (Fischer et al, 2005; Tol, 2002) and the policy structures that may be needed to assist the agricultural community in adaptation (Howden et al, 2007; Smit and Skinner, 2002). In the context of agriculture, climate policy risk is the potential threat posed by climate change regulations or policies to mitigate or adapt to climate change
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