No glory without sacrifice — drivers of climate (in)action in the general population
Annina Thaller, Eva Fleiß, Thomas Brudermann
Abstract
This study addresses climate-friendly behaviors in three different domains, namely, conservation behavior, social climate protection, and climate citizenship. We tested the effect of psycho-social, cognitive, and socio-demographic factors on different climate-friendly behaviors on a quota sample of Austrian citizens (n = 499). All types of factors investigated were found to influence at least one type of behavior; most of the effects however were small or moderate. The willingness to sacrifice existing conveniences turned out to be the most important predictor for all three types of climate-friendly behaviors. Increasing age was positively associated with climate-friendlier behaviors. Gender showed reverse effects for conservation behavior and climate citizenship, i.e. female participants perform better with regards to conservation behavior, and male participants with regards to climate citizenship. As the most relevant predictors for climate-friendliness cannot be directly targeted by policy measures, it is proposed that behavioral policies aim at establishing suitable circumstances in order for climate-friendly behaviors to thrive rather than hoping for individual behavior changes as a result of growing concern, awareness, or improved knowledge.