The relative importance of subjective and structural factors for individual adaptation to climate change by forest owners in Sweden

Gregor Vulturius,Calum Brown,Åsa Gerger Swartling,Karin André,Mark D A Rounsevell,Victor Blanco

doi:10.1007/s10113-017-1218-1

Abstract

A growing body of literature argues that subjective factors can more accurately explain individual adaptation to climate change than objective measurers of adaptive capacity. Recent studies have shown that personal belief in climate change and affect are much better in explaining climate awareness and action than income, education or gender. This study focuses on the process of individual adaptation to climate change. It assesses and compares the influence of cognitive, experiential and structural factors on individuals’ views and intentions regarding climate change adaptation. Data from this study comes from a survey with 836 forest owners in Sweden. Ordinal and binary logistic regression was used to test hypotheses about the different factors. Results show that cognitive factors—namely personal level of trust in climate science, belief in the salience of climate change and risk assessment—are the only statistically significant factors that can directly explain individuals’ intention to adapt to climate change and their sense of urgency. Findings also suggest that structural or socio-demographic factors do not have a statistically significant influence on adaptation decision-making among Swedish forest owners. The study also offers valuable insights for communication interventions to promote adaptation. Findings strongly suggest that communication interventions should focus more strongly on building trust and addressing stakeholders’ individual needs and experiences.

Highlights

As the impacts of climate change become more tangible and severe, interest in how and why individuals adapt to them is growing (Tam and McDaniels 2013)
The second section presents the results of two logistic regression models to test assumptions about the influence of the different cognitive, experiential and structural factors on individual adaptation among forest owners
Results from the survey suggest that salience of climate change is considerable with more than two fifths of forest owners believing that extreme events in Sweden can at least in part be linked to climate change

Summary

Introduction

As the impacts of climate change become more tangible and severe, interest in how and why individuals adapt to them is growing (Tam and McDaniels 2013). Much of the contemporary scientific literature about climate change adaptation focuses on structural factors that determine the capacity of society and its institutions to adapt to climate change impacts (Brooks et al 2005; Füssel and Klein 2006; Tinch et al 2015) These studies examine the availability and accessibility of certain economic and political resources to explain whether, how and why adaptation takes place. By following this structural approach, individual adaptation can be understood as part of ‘local or community-based adjustments to deal with changing conditions within the constraints of the broader economic–social– political arrangements’ (Smit and Wandel 2006: 289). This suggests that individuals are more likely to adapt to climate change if they have the ability and access to resources to anticipate and respond to climatic risk and if socio-economic conditions are favourable

Objectives

Results

Conclusion