Scientific consensus can strengthen pro-climate attitudes in society

Climate scientists have long agreed that humans are largely responsible for climate change. A new study, co-led by Bojana Većkalov from the University of Amsterdam and Sandra Geiger from the University of Vienna, finds that communicating the scientific consensus about climate change can clear up misperceptions and strengthen beliefs about the existence and the causes of climate change. The team surveyed over 10,000 people from 27 countries on 6 continents. The study has just been published in the renowned journal Nature Human Behaviour. 

Scientific consensus identifying humans as primarily responsible for climate change is not new and was already forming in the 1980s. Today, 97% to 99.9% of climate scientists agree that climate change is happening and that human activity is the primary cause. Over the past decade, researchers have begun to study the effects of communicating this overwhelming consensus – with promising results. So far, however, such studies have primarily been conducted in the United States. “As is the case with many findings in behavioral science, we know little about the effects of communicating this consensus beyond the United States. Our study now takes an extensive and detailed look at these effects,” says environmental psychologist Sandra Geiger from the University of Vienna.

The international research team of 46 collaborators showed different scientific consensus messages to more than 10,500 people and subsequently asked them about their opinions on climate change. “We observed that previous findings from the United States hold true in other parts of the world as well,” explains co-lead author Bojana Većkalov from the University of Amsterdam. Across all 27 countries, people responded similarly to the scientific consensus on the existence and causes of climate change. Co-lead author Geiger further explains: “Prior to reading about the consensus among climate scientists, people estimated this consensus to be much lower than it really is. In response to reading about it, they adjusted their own perceptions, believed more in climate change, and worried more about it – but they did not support public action on climate change more.”

88% of climate scientists additionally agree that climate change constitutes a crisis. How do people react when they learn about this additional crisis consensus? Interestingly, this added piece of information did not have any effects. Co-lead author Većkalov explains: “We believe that the gap between the actual and perceived consensus could have played a role. When it came to consensus on the existence and causes of climate change, respondents thought the scientific consensus was lower than it actually was, adjusted their estimate, and revised their beliefs. In the case of the crisis consensus, the respondents’ estimate was substantially closer to the actual consensus, and this gap was likely not big enough to alter beliefs about climate change.”

These new findings show that it is important to continue emphasizing the consensus among climate scientists – be it in the media or in our everyday lives when we have conversations about climate change and its impacts. “Especially in the face of increasing politicization of science and misinformation about climate change, cultivating universal awareness of the scientific consensus will help protect public understanding of the issue”, adds senior author      Sander van der Linden from the University of Cambridge. “Beyond climate change communication, these findings also underscore the importance of testing previous findings in behavioral science globally. Such endeavors are only possible if we bring together researchers worldwide”, summarizes study co-lead Sandra Geiger. 

Besides Sandra Geiger, Mathew White and Jakob Götz from the University of Vienna were also involved in this study. What is particularly unique about this work is the involvement of students and early-career researchers from the Junior Researcher Programme (JRP) and the Global Behavioral Science (GLOBES) program at Columbia University.