The concern about main crises such as the Covid-19 pandemic, the war in Ukraine, and climate change's impact on energy-saving behavior

Genovaitė Liobikienė; Yuliia Matiiuk; Ričardas Krikštolaitis

doi:10.1016/j.enpol.2023.113678

The concern about main crises such as the Covid-19 pandemic, the war in Ukraine, and climate change's impact on energy-saving behavior

Energy Policy. 2023 Jun 23:113678. doi: 10.1016/j.enpol.2023.113678. Online ahead of print.

Authors

Genovaitė Liobikienė¹, Yuliia Matiiuk¹, Ričardas Krikštolaitis^{2

3}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Environmental Sciences, Vytautas Magnus University, Vileikos st. 8, LT-44404, Kaunas, Lithuania.
² Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Vytautas Magnus University, Universiteto str. 10, Akademija, LT, 53361, Kaunas Dist, Lithuania.
³ Lithuanian Energy Institute, Breslaujos str. 3, LT-44403, Kaunas, Lithuania.

Abstract

The number of crises experienced around the world forces people to reconsider and reassess various aspects of their lives. The energy crisis caused by the war in Ukraine and uncontrolled climate change revealed the importance of energy-saving behavior. Thus, the aim of this paper is to analyze the concerns about current crises such as the Covid-19 pandemic, the war in Ukraine, and climate change's impact on energy-saving behavior and changes in environmental concern. Referring to the survey conducted in Lithuania in 2022, where 1000 respondents participated, the results revealed that the war in Ukraine was the most concerning problem. The level of climate change concern was slightly lower. Meanwhile, the Covid-19 pandemic was the least important problem in Lithuania in 2022. Furthermore, respondents stated that the Covid-19 pandemic contributed to the changes in environmental concern and energy-saving actions more than the war in Ukraine did. Meanwhile, the Generalized Linear Model results revealed that only the war in Ukraine positively and significantly influenced energy-saving behavior. The Covid-19 pandemic concern negatively affected energy-saving behavior, while the climate change concern factor affected it indirectly, as the interaction of attitudes toward energy consumption. Thus, this study revealed the main aspect of and how to encourage energy-saving behavior in the context of the main current crises.

Keywords: Attitudes; Climate change; Energy-saving behavior; Pro-environmental behavior; The Covid-19 pandemic; The war in Ukraine.