Francesca Pongiglione (University of Bologna)

“Climate change and individual decision-making”

abstract

In this presentation, three separate yet interconnected components of pro-environmental decision making are considered: (a) knowledge, in the form of scientific understanding and procedural knowledge, (b) risk perception, and (c) self-interest, either monetary or status-driven. Drawing on a variety of sources in public policy, psychology, and economics, I examine the role of these concepts in inducing or discouraging pro-environmental behavior. Past researches have overemphasized the weight of just one of those variables, but none of them, alone, has revealed to be capable of bringing about the behavioral change required. I suggest that in all of the above cases a missing ingredient may be found in providing the public with locally contextualized procedural knowledge, the importance of which has solid empirical underpinnings, and is often overlooked in the climate-change debate that tends to focus on more high-level issues. Yet, for all its essential simplicity, it may carry important public-policy implications.