Taiwanese public awareness and attitudes about global warming and intentions to participate in planting trees for carbon sequestration.

Abstract

As planting trees is one of the feasible strategies for reducing greenhouse gases, this study conducted a mail questionnaire survey on the topics of global warming and planting trees, in which respondents were the general public in Taiwan. Based on this survey, we determined and analyzed the general public's feelings, attitudes, and awareness about some environmental and ecological problems, such as global warming and climate change, and further investigated the extent to which they might participate in planting tree for carbon sequestration. Our results showed that respondents were most concerned about global warming among environmental and ecological problems, and also thought that global warming was the most serious problem. By a one-way ANOVA, it was found that significant differences existed in the level of respondents' concern about global warming based on their age and educational level. By a factor analysis, 2 common factors of 'improved action of global warming' and 'awareness of and concern about global warming' were extracted from the 'improved action of global warming' dimension, where the highest level of education and occupation showed significant differences. The percentage of respondents who considered or had been engaged in tree-planting activities to reduce carbon accounted for 81.4％ of the total. Among 5 suggested programs for planting trees, the ratio of planting trees in a personal garden or on one's balcony was the highest, which accounted for 79.0％. On the impetus for policies, this study discovered that if the public understood the contents of policies more clearly, then their intention to participate in planting trees would also rise. As a consequence, it is suggested to enhance persuasion and guidance of the public to participate in planting trees to reduce carbon, so as to increase their understanding of related information about planting trees, and also to achieve effective communication.