European citizens' stance on limiting energy use for climate change mitigation

Fernando Mata; Leonel J R Nunes

doi:10.7717/peerj.15835

European citizens' stance on limiting energy use for climate change mitigation

PeerJ. 2023 Aug 7:11:e15835. doi: 10.7717/peerj.15835. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Fernando Mata¹, Leonel J R Nunes^{2

3

4}

Affiliations

¹ CISAS-Center for Research and Development in Agrifood Systems and Sustainability, Instituto Politécnico de Viana do Castelo, Viana do Castelo, Portugal.
² DEGEIT, Departamento de Economia, Gestão, Engenharia Industrial e Turismo, Universidade de Aveiro, Aveiro, Portugal.
³ GOVCOPP, Unidade de Investigação em Governança, Competitividade e Políticas Públicas, Universidade de Aveiro, Aveiro, Portugal.
⁴ PROMETHEUS, Unidade de Investigação em Materiais, Energia e Ambiente Para a Sustentabilidade, Instituto Politécnico de Viana do Castelo, Viana do Castelo, Portugal.

Abstract

Citizens' attitudes and beliefs towards climate change are decisive in the adoption of mitigating measures. Limiting the use of energy in the context of climate change can be one of the mitigation measures, and therefore, understanding the position of the citizens towards it is important. With this aim, we used data from the 10^th European Social Survey to relate the European citizens' beliefs and attitudes on limiting the use of energy to tackle climate change. We have used variables related to demography and individuals' perception of society and its policies. Statistical models were successfully fitted to data. Individuals with higher levels of trust in scientists have a higher degree of satisfaction with the national economies, are more worried about climate change and are more capable of assuming self-responsibility in climate change mitigation. These individuals have higher probabilities of believing that climate change mitigation could be achieved by limiting the use of energy. The EU citizens are, however, very skeptical in relation to the probability of many other citizens adopting measures to limit the use of energy.

Keywords: Attitudes; Climate change; Energy use; European citizens; Mitigation; Perception.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Attitude*
Climate Change*
Humans
Policy
Social Behavior

Grants and funding

The Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT, Portugal) provided financial support to the CISAS UIDB/05937/2020 and UIDP/05937/2020, including the contract of Fernando Mata. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.