Motivating Personal Climate Action through a Safety and Health Risk Management Framework

Area of Science:

• Environmental Psychology
• Climate Change Communication
• Risk Management

Background:

• Climate change poses significant health and safety risks, yet traditional risk management frameworks are underutilized.
• Effective communication strategies are crucial for motivating public action on climate change.
• Understanding personal worldviews is key to tailoring climate action messaging.

Purpose of the Study:

• To assess the impact of a communication intervention framing climate change as a safety issue on personal motivation for action.
• To evaluate how a safety and health risk management framework influences climate action motivation.
• To explore the role of personal worldviews in driving climate action.

Main Methods:

• An online survey with a communication intervention was administered to 273 participants.
• Pre- and post-intervention data were analyzed using Wilcoxon signed-rank tests and descriptive statistics.
• Path analysis and multi-regression analyses examined the influence of beliefs and worldviews on motivation.

Main Results:

• Personal motivation for climate action significantly increased after the intervention.
• Beliefs in climate change's anthropogenicity, personal impact, and human efficacy predicted motivation.
• Prioritizing climate change as a safety issue and egalitarian worldviews correlated with higher motivation.

Conclusions:

• Communicating climate change through a health and safety risk management lens effectively increases personal motivation.
• The intervention improved climate change knowledge, reduced perceived barriers, and shifted preferences towards impactful actions.
• This study advances understanding of climate change communication and motivation strategies.