TY - JOUR
T1 - The Impact of Public Deliberation on Climate Change Opinions Among U.S. Citizens
AU - Ghimire, Rajiv
AU - Anbar, Nathaniel
AU - Chhetri, Netra B.
N1 - Funding Information:
This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under grant number EAR‐1204774, Category 3: Sustainable large‐scale deployment of perennial biomass energy crops. We gratefully acknowledge the Danish Board of Technology for organizing the study World Wide Views on Climate and Energy. We thank the School for the Future of Innovation in Society and the School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning at Arizona State University for their contributions.
Funding Information:
This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under grant number EAR-1204774, Category 3: Sustainable large-scale deployment of perennial biomass
Publisher Copyright:
Copyright © 2021 Ghimire, Anbar and Chhetri.
PY - 2021/3/12
Y1 - 2021/3/12
N2 - Governance of climate change has become a major global environmental issue in the 21st century, and in the absence of wider citizen engagement poses risks of global proportions. Much of the current climate governance debate, unfortunately, is limited to scientists, politicians, and interest groups. With few exceptions, everyday citizens are spectators at best, their views, if not absent, are dismally represented in policy processes. To close the widening gap between citizens and policymakers, thereby increasing the sense of ownership of environmental policies by ordinary people, several methods of citizen engagement for global environmental governance have emerged. The effectiveness of these methods, however, relies upon the ability of citizens to deliberate meaningfully, especially in issues such as climate change. We conducted a study in conjunction with World Wide Views on Climate and Energy, a global citizen consultation that aims to solicit carefully considered public views on pressing issues, to determine whether American citizens are receptive to deliberation, and to ascertain what effect it had on their opinions, if any, could be observed. Along with the descriptive analysis, we performed a non-parametric Wilcoxon signed-rank test of selected pre-and post-event opinions of the participants from the US. Our study revealed that providing US citizens with the opportunity to engage in deliberation resulted in increased awareness regarding climate change and greater trust in science, technology, and international agreements. The change in opinion was more pronounced among people whose political orientation titled to the right or who considered themselves as neutral. Citizen’s opinions, especially after the event, resulted in less polarized views towards the global consensus on climate change. This finding suggests that US citizens are receptive to scientific information if it is communicated in an appropriate manner – a characteristic necessary for the creation of deliberative democratic governance on socially contested issues.
AB - Governance of climate change has become a major global environmental issue in the 21st century, and in the absence of wider citizen engagement poses risks of global proportions. Much of the current climate governance debate, unfortunately, is limited to scientists, politicians, and interest groups. With few exceptions, everyday citizens are spectators at best, their views, if not absent, are dismally represented in policy processes. To close the widening gap between citizens and policymakers, thereby increasing the sense of ownership of environmental policies by ordinary people, several methods of citizen engagement for global environmental governance have emerged. The effectiveness of these methods, however, relies upon the ability of citizens to deliberate meaningfully, especially in issues such as climate change. We conducted a study in conjunction with World Wide Views on Climate and Energy, a global citizen consultation that aims to solicit carefully considered public views on pressing issues, to determine whether American citizens are receptive to deliberation, and to ascertain what effect it had on their opinions, if any, could be observed. Along with the descriptive analysis, we performed a non-parametric Wilcoxon signed-rank test of selected pre-and post-event opinions of the participants from the US. Our study revealed that providing US citizens with the opportunity to engage in deliberation resulted in increased awareness regarding climate change and greater trust in science, technology, and international agreements. The change in opinion was more pronounced among people whose political orientation titled to the right or who considered themselves as neutral. Citizen’s opinions, especially after the event, resulted in less polarized views towards the global consensus on climate change. This finding suggests that US citizens are receptive to scientific information if it is communicated in an appropriate manner – a characteristic necessary for the creation of deliberative democratic governance on socially contested issues.
KW - climate change
KW - deliberation
KW - opinion change
KW - public views
KW - world wide views
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85115146287&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85115146287&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.3389/fpos.2021.606829
DO - 10.3389/fpos.2021.606829
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85115146287
SN - 2673-3145
VL - 3
JO - Frontiers in Political Science
JF - Frontiers in Political Science
M1 - 606829
ER -