This research investigated how an individual’s endorsements of mitigation and adaptation relate to each other, and how well each of these can be accounted for by relevant social psychological factors. Based on survey data from two European convenience samples (N = 616 / 309) we found that public endorsements of mitigation and adaptation are strongly associated: Someone who is willing to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (mitigation) is also willing to prepare for climate change impacts (adaptation). Moreover, people endorsed the two response strategies for similar reasons: People who believe that climate change is real and dangerous, who have positive attitudes about protecting the environment and the climate, and who perceive climate change as a risk, are willing to respond to climate change. Furthermore, distinguishing between (spatially) proximal and distant risk perceptions suggested that the idea of portraying climate change as a proximal (i.e., local) threat might indeed be effective in promoting personal actions. However, to gain endorsement of broader societal initiatives such as policy support, it seems advisable to turn to the distant risks of climate change. The notion that “localising” climate change might not be the panacea for engaging people in this domain is discussed in regard to previous theory and research.

Funding: The study conducted in Switzerland was partly supported by the Social Psychology Division of the Otto-von-Guericke University at Magdeburg, Germany. Adrian Brügger was supported by a doctoral fellowship from the Climate Change and Sustainable Futures theme at the University of Exeter. Suraje Dessai is supported by the European Research Council under the 7th Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013)/ERC Grant agreement no. 284369 and by the UK Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) for the Centre for Climate Change Economics and Policy (CCCEP). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

Introduction

To respond to the challenges posed by climate change, societies around the world are faced with two related but separate strategies. The first strategy, mitigation, involves reducing the magnitude of future climate change by cutting greenhouse gas emissions (e.g., reduction of energy consumption) and enhancing greenhouse gas sinks (e.g., afforestation) [1]. However, because the planet is already committed to a certain level of climate change [2], it is also important to prepare for and deal with the negative consequences of climate change (e.g., protecting coastal zones from sea-level rise) as well as taking advantage of the positive consequences of climate change (e.g., growing wine in regions that were previously too cold for that purpose). This second response to climate change is referred to as adaptation [2].

Implementing these response strategies, however, is challenging not least because it requires endorsement from the general public. If public endorsement is weak and priorities lie elsewhere, then unpopular mitigation and adaptation measures will meet resistance. Understanding how members of the public view mitigation and adaptation is also important because the amount of individuals’ greenhouse gas emissions—and therefore the potential for emission reductions— is substantial [3]. Individual motivation is also paramount in terms of adaptation: the responsibility for many adaptive responses entirely lies with individuals. In short, if mitigation and adaptation are to be successful, both as individual and collective (i.e., policy) responses, it is important to understand what motivates people to endorse each of these strategies.

While climate change experts agree that both mitigation and adaptation are necessary, currently there is little knowledge about the relationship between people’s endorsement of mitigation and their endorsement of adaptation. Conceptually, three relationships between mitigation and adaptation can be postulated: (1) a negative relationship, where the public considers mitigation and adaptation as competing alternatives—that is, people favour either mitigation or adaptation and discard the other; (2) a positive relationship, where people similarly endorse (or oppose) mitigation and adaptation, or; (3) there is no systematic relationship between endorsements for mitigation and adaptation.

The first possibility, a negative relationship between the two response strategies, mirrors how interest in mitigation and adaptation developed over time. Until recently, researchers and policy-makers almost exclusively focused on mitigation [4,5]. One of the reasons for the prioritising of mitigation was that focusing on adaptation evoked negative associations such as being “defeatist” or not willing to act [5]. Members of the public might take a similar stance and favour mitigation over adaptation.

In addition to the historical development, there are important differences between mitigation and adaptation that, on their own, could create a divide between endorsements of the two response strategies. The most striking difference is probably the temporal and spatial scale at which the two strategies work [4,6]. Mitigation requires immediate action but—due to the inertia of the climate system—it will take decades before mitigation efforts will show their benefits. To illustrate, it would take several decades before emission reductions stabilised the climatic changes that are already under way. In contrast, adaptation measures typically focus on short or medium term problems and often yield immediate benefits. An example that illustrates this is the upgrade of flood defences: once they are in place, they protect people to a higher standard of flood risk. With regard to space, effective mitigation must be implemented globally and will also have global benefits while adaptation efforts and benefits are constrained to the regional or local level [4]. There are a number of individual differences that could lead people to more strongly support early versus late action or (spatially) proximal versus distant solutions (e.g., the extent to which people are attached to proximal versus distant places [7]).

Despite the historical development and incontestable differences between mitigation and adaptation, a positive relationship, that is, joint endorsement of (or opposition to) the two strategies, is not implausible. After all, their common goal is to avoid negative consequences for the human and natural environment. If people’s endorsements of mitigation and adaptation are guided by a broader perspective that integrates both strategies as a common response to threats associated with climate change, then people who endorse one strategy, for example because they value nature, should also endorse the second strategy.

Lastly, there are at least two reasons why the relationship between mitigation and adaptation may be unsystematic. First, the media typically frame climate change mitigation and adaptation independently of each other [8]. This makes it difficult for laypeople to relate the two strategies to each other, other than via their common association with the issue of climate change. Second, it is possible that the way different people relate mitigation to adaptation varies strongly (e.g., some people may endorse both strategies because of their common goal, others favouring one strategy because of its specific characteristics). In this case the pattern between the two strategies could look unsystematic (i.e., zero-relationship). In sum, good reasons can be advanced for a negative, positive, or unsystematic relationship between mitigation and adaptation.

To date, few studies have empirically investigated the relationship between mitigation and adaptation in the public’s mind. Among these studies, two provide indirect evidence for a positive relationship: Farmers who believed that anthropogenic climate change was happening were more likely to endorse mitigation and adaptation measures than farmers who were sceptical about climate change [9]. It is, however, unclear to what extent these results apply to the general public. Yet a study conducted among homeowners—who may be more comparable to the general public—revealed similar findings: The more homeowners were aware of and concerned about climate change, the more money were they willing to pay for mitigation and adaptation measures [10]. Another study conducted with members of the general public found that the more people felt that climate change was a severe threat and the more they felt vulnerable, the more they were willing to mitigate [11]. However, severity and vulnerability did not predict adaptation, suggesting that people endorsed the two strategies for different reasons and that the relationship between mitigation and adaptation may be unsystematic. Overall, previous studies provide some evidence that specific groups (i.e., farmers and homeowners) endorse mitigation and adaptation strategies for similar reasons. However, very little is known about how the general public relates these two strategies to each other.

Against this backdrop, the aim of the present research is to further explore the relationship between endorsements of mitigation and adaptation by examining the correlations between different forms of mitigation and adaptation and by investigating people’s motives to mitigate and to adapt. To this end, we draw on a range of specific motivational variables that have been identified in previous research on individual responses to climate change.