Climate
change
poorly
understood, not a high priority, shows MIT public survey
By
Nancy Stauffer, MIT Laboratory
for Energy and the Environment
As
researchers and politicians grapple with the potential impacts of climate
change, an obvious question is, How much is the public willing to pay
to prevent climate change? Indeed, how much do people even understand
about climate change and the options for reducing its impacts? According
to a recent MIT survey of the US public, the answer to both of those
questions is, not much.
For
more than a decade, Howard J. Herzog and his colleagues at the Laboratory
for Energy and the Environment (LFEE) have been studying an approach
to climate-change mitigation referred to as carbon-dioxide (CO2) capture
and storage (CCS). In that approach, CO2 emissions from power plants
and other large sources are captured and injected into geologic formations
for long-term storage. That practice would help reduce GHG emissions
while efficient and carbon-free energy sources are developed. CCS could
also be used to cut emissions quickly if the need becomes urgent.
The
LFEE studies have demonstrated that CCS shows technologic and economic
promise. But public acceptance of the technology could be a problem.
To better understand that potential stumbling block, the researchers
wanted to find out what people thought about CCS in particular and about
climate change and environmental issues in general.
Mr.
Herzog, graduate student Thomas E. Curry, and Professors David M. Reiner
and Stephen Ansolabehere therefore developed a survey including 17 questions
about the environment, global warming, and climate-change-mitigation
technologies. To design and administer the survey, they collaborated
with Knowledge Networks, a consumer information company that specializes
in Internet-based public opinion surveys and maintains an online panel
of individuals designed to be representative of the entire US population.
The survey was sent out in fall of 2003, and 1,200 people responded.
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The
respondents proved to be relatively unaware of not only CCS but also
other energy-related responses to climate change. As shown in the table
below, fewer than 5% of the people had heard of or read about CCS or
“carbon sequestration” (its alternative name). The researchers
were not surprised that CCS fell “under the radar” for the
general public, but the quantitative outcome—a number that was
close to zero—is dramatic, especially as there is a bias for people
to respond positively so as not to appear ignorant. More surprisingly,
many people had also not heard about hydrogen cars, wind energy, and
nuclear energy. Most striking is that fully 17% of the people had heard
about none of the listed items during the past year.
Other
questions demonstrated the public’s lack of understanding. For
example, when asked what concern CCS would address, well over half of
the respondents said they were not sure. Of those that made a choice,
23% said (correctly) that CCS could reduce global warming, but 29% said
(incorrectly) that it could reduce smog, and 23% said (incorrectly)
that it could reduce water pollution. People who had heard about CCS
were no more likely to know what concern it might address than those
who had not heard about it.
There
was also confusion about whether selected technologies increase or decrease
CO2 levels in the atmosphere. Many people knew that cars, factories,
and coal-burning power plants increase atmospheric CO2; but almost a
third of them believed that nuclear power plants also belong in that
group—not good news for proponents of nuclear power as a carbon-free
source of baseload electricity.
When
asked how we can best address the issue of global warming as it relates
to electricity production, about half of the people voted to expand
the use of renewables (solar and wind power). However, when they were
told that switching to renewables would (for example) triple their family’s
annual electricity bill, about half of those people abandoned renewables
for a variety of other options. Among the chosen options were both using
CCS with coal- or natural-gas-fired power plants and using all nuclear
power—options that they were told would only double their bills.
Interestingly, 6–7% of all respondents said that no action should
be taken because “there is no threat of global warming.”
Other
questions showed that the environment in general and climate change
in particular are not high-priority issues for the public. The environment
came out thirteenth on a list of 22 possibilities for “the most
important issues facing the US today.” The front-runners on the
list were terrorism, health care, and the economy. And on a list of
10 specific environmental problems, “global warming” came
up in sixth place, well behind water pollution, destruction of ecosystems,
and toxic waste.
Respondents
were asked how much extra they would be willing to pay on their electricity
bills to “solve global warming.” The average answer was
about $6.50 per month—well below the cost of significantly reducing
CO2 emissions. Almost a third of the people were not willing to pay
even $5.00 extra, an amount unlikely to be felt in their personal budget.
Higher income did not translate to greater willingness to pay, but people
who said they were concerned about the environment were willing to pay
more.
What
do the survey results mean for public outreach on climate change issues?
Given the consistency of the results, all demographic groups—economic,
political, geographical, and so on—could benefit from education
programs. (The only demographic trend was that better-educated people
were slightly more aware.) Programs should start with the fundamentals,
helping people to understand the links between burning fossil fuels,
greenhouse gas emissions, and the potential for climate change. Discussions
of how technologies influence climate change should focus on not just
new technologies such as CCS but also longstanding technologies such
as nuclear power. And perhaps most important, discussions must include
the relative costs of the various technology options, as cost differentials
can profoundly influence people’s preferences.
From
a practical perspective, the survey suggests that change in US climate
policy will not be led by public opinion. Elected officials will have
to provide leadership—a task they will find difficult because
achieving significant carbon reduction may involve economic costs well
above what the average consumer is willing to pay.
In
terms of CCS, the survey confirmed that—despite national discussion
of CCS, demonstration projects, and commercial operations overseas—people
have not heard of the technology. The public will thus be forming opinions
about CCS over the coming years, shaped both by what they read and hear
and by the successes and failures of early CCS activities. If CCS moves
forward, special attention must focus on communities that will be directly
affected by CO2 storage—a difficult situation in which local residents
are asked to take on a cost for the global good.
In
continuing their work on CCS, the MIT researchers plan to administer
the same survey in two or three years to measure the evolution of public
awareness, understanding, and acceptance (or rejection) of CCS. In the
meantime, they are working with their Alliance for Global Sustainability
partners to run similar surveys in other countries; and they are developing
a survey to determine the attitudes toward CCS of nongovernmental organizations,
which can be critical in informing and shaping public opinion on such
complicated issues as CCS and climate change.
Howard
J. Herzog is a principal research engineer at the MIT Laboratory for
Energy and the Environment (LFEE) and director of the LFEE’s Carbon
Sequestration Initiative. Thomas E. Curry received his SM degree in
technology and policy from MIT’s Engineering Systems Division
in June 2004. David M. Reiner is a lecturer at the Judge Institute of
Management, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom. Stephen Ansolabehere
is the Elting R. Morison Professor in the MIT Department of Political
Science. This research was supported by the Alliance for Global Sustainability
and the Carbon Sequestration Initiative. Further information can be
found in references 9 and 10 below.
References
Curry,
T. Public Awareness of Carbon Capture and Storage: A Survey of Attitudes
toward Climate Change Mitigation. SM thesis, MIT Engineering Systems
Division, June 2004. Available at http://sequestration.mit.edu/bibliography/policy.html.
(Ref. 9)
Curry,
T., D. Reiner, S. Ansolabehere, and H. Herzog. How Aware is the
Public of Carbon Capture and Storage? Presented at the Seventh
International Conference on Greenhouse Gas Control Technologies, Vancouver,
Canada, September 2004. Available at http://sequestration.mit.edu/bibliography/policy.html.
(Ref. 10)
(Note:
This article was originally published in the Decmeber 2004 issue of
energy &
environment, the newsletter of the MIT
Laboratory for Energy and the Environment.)
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