What persuades people to support climate transition initiatives?

The researchers in this project study the factors that influence people to engage and work together to achieve transition. They analyse people’s impetus and motives, and what hinders them. To find the thought structures and paradigms that influence people is a key aim.

A common argument supporting the view that individuals do not need to change their lifestyle is that the climate crisis is a systemic problem. Yet there are great expectations that the problem can be solved by the free choices of individuals – by way of market solutions, among other things. These two standpoints may appear to be diametrically opposed: it is either a lifestyle problem or a systemic problem, with nothing in between.

Yet there is an increasing body of research suggesting that it is precisely in that gap that environmental impact occurs. The lifestyle choice of a single individual has limited impact on total emissions, and it does not seem as though systemic changes can occur (in a democracy) without people’s support. But when people talk to each other, develop new norms in their conversations, involve themselves in movements and push for change, they create a basis for systemic transition.

The researchers are using questionnaires to gather stories and experiences that they will analyze using a rhetorical method, focusing particularly on the reasoning and argumentation of the respondents.

The method had been tried out in an earlier project in which the researchers were able to study thought structures and drivers, and then problematize and nuance a number of widespread perceptions and theories about how people react to knowledge, shame and fear. They also discovered that social interactions and contexts are central to the process whereby individuals shift from passivity to action.

The researchers want to use the same method but with a new focus. This time they will examine the social process that not only influences individuals to change their lifestyle, but also provides a fertile ground for systemic change.

They believe the insights to be gained about obstacles and drivers for engagement in transition beyond people’s own lifestyles may have a major part to play in speeding up the pace of societal transformation.

In the researchers’ view, if it is possible to identify and conceptualize thought structures and paradigms governing human actions, it will also be possible to challenge assumptions that create inertia or that are wholly or partly unfounded, and promote those that lead to transition.

The hypothesis is that collective and social engagement in the climate issue emerges in a process. Much can be gained if the parameters that promote this process, and the way in which they interact can be described. The researchers hope to gain deeper insights into the way circumstances, experiences, emotions, morals, knowledge and social interactions interplay. These themes have all been studied individually in earlier research, but are brought together in this interdisciplinary project.