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A social science research agenda to accelerate public engagement in climate change adaptation.

ABSTRACT: Recent studies find that people in high-income countries now think of climate change impacts, such as flooding or periods of high temperature, as being of immediate relevance and concern. Individuals and households can take adaptation actions to help limit the severity of harm caused when climate impacts occur, for example, they could make adjustments to their homes such as installing flood gates or sun shades, or they could adapt their behavior such as staying indoors during the hottest part of the day. However, so far adaptation is not yet happening at the speed or scale needed to adequately prepare for the climate impacts already being experienced or those projected for the coming decades. Here, we propose an agenda for future social science research that would further our understanding of how best to increase engagement and action in climate change adaptation.

SUBMITTER: Harcourt R

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10726107 | biostudies-literature | 2023

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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A social science research agenda to accelerate public engagement in climate change adaptation.

Harcourt Rachel R Dessai Suraje S Bruine de Bruin Wandi W Taylor Andrea A

Frontiers in psychology 20231204

Recent studies find that people in high-income countries now think of climate change impacts, such as flooding or periods of high temperature, as being of immediate relevance and concern. Individuals and households can take adaptation actions to help limit the severity of harm caused when climate impacts occur, for example, they could make adjustments to their homes such as installing flood gates or sun shades, or they could adapt their behavior such as staying indoors during the hottest part of ...[more]

PMID: 38111862

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Project description:There is a clear need for a state-of-the-art review of how public participation in climate change adaptation is being considered in research across academic communities: The Rio Declaration developed in 1992 at the UN Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) included explicit goals of citizen participation and engagement in climate actions (Principle 10). Nation states were given special responsibility to facilitate these by ensuring access to information and opportunities to participate in decision-making processes. Since then the need for public participation has featured prominently in calls to climate action. Using text analysis to produce a corpus of abstracts drawn from Web of Science, a review of literature incorporating public participation and citizen engagement in climate change adaptation since 1992 reveals lexical, temporal, and spatial distribution dynamics of research on the topic. An exponential rise in research effort since the year 2000 is demonstrated, with the focus of research action on three substantial themes-risk, flood risk, and risk assessment, perception, and communication. These are critically reviewed and three substantive issues are considered: the paradox of participation, the challenge of governance transformation, and the need to incorporate psycho-social and behavioral adaptation to climate change in policy processes. Gaps in current research include a lack of common understanding of public participation for climate adaptation across disciplines; incomplete articulation of processes involving public participation and citizen engagement; and a paucity of empirical research examining how understanding and usage of influential concepts of risk, vulnerability and adaptive capacity varies among different disciplines and stakeholders. Finally, a provisional research agenda for attending to these gaps is described. This article is categorized under:Vulnerability and Adaptation to Climate Change > Institutions for AdaptationPolicy and Governance > Governing Climate Change in Communities, Cities, and Regions.

Project description:BackgroundClimate change is among the major challenges for health this century, and adaptation to manage adverse health outcomes will be unavoidable. The risks in Ontario - Canada's most populous province - include increasing temperatures, more frequent and intense extreme weather events, and alterations to precipitation regimes. Socio-economic-demographic patterns could magnify the implications climate change has for Ontario, including the presence of rapidly growing vulnerable populations, exacerbation of warming trends by heat-islands in large urban areas, and connectedness to global transportation networks. This study examines climate change adaptation in the public health sector in Ontario using information from interviews with government officials.MethodsFifty-three semi-structured interviews were conducted, four with provincial and federal health officials and 49 with actors in public health and health relevant sectors at the municipal level. We identify adaptation efforts, barriers and opportunities for current and future intervention.ResultsResults indicate recognition that climate change will affect the health of Ontarians. Health officials are concerned about how a changing climate could exacerbate existing health issues or create new health burdens, specifically extreme heat (71%), severe weather (68%) and poor air-quality (57%). Adaptation is currently taking the form of mainstreaming climate change into existing public health programs. While adaptive progress has relied on local leadership, federal support, political will, and inter-agency efforts, a lack of resources constrains the sustainability of long-term adaptation programs and the acquisition of data necessary to support effective policies.ConclusionsThis study provides a snapshot of climate change adaptation and needs in the public health sector in Ontario. Public health departments will need to capitalize on opportunities to integrate climate change into policies and programs, while higher levels of government must improve efforts to support local adaptation and provide the capacity through which local adaptation can succeed.

Dataset Information

A social science research agenda to accelerate public engagement in climate change adaptation.

Publications

A social science research agenda to accelerate public engagement in climate change adaptation.

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