Community Energy Literature Review

Three aspects of climate change denial will be discussed: the psychology of denial, the beliefs of political elites, and climate misinformation. The section on psychology cites a 2020 paper about motivated denial – knowing the facts but denying them – and briefly refers to information processing and the links between emotion and cognition in two later papers. The section on political elites is based on a 2026 survey of elected officials, staffers, regulators, lobbyists, and policy professionals in the United States. The final section cites two recent papers, one on the spread and persistence of climate misinformation, the other predicting its future development. Psychology of denial “Action on climate change is currently minimal, and woefully inadequate for steering away from the worst trajectories and impacts.” These were the opening words of a 2020 paper entitled Understanding and Countering the Motivated Roots of Climate Change Denial . By motivated denial, the authors meant “kn...

Some positive views on progress in combatting climate change will be considered in this post. They concern what has been achieved so far; public support for climate action; our understanding of climate change; new technology; global action; and individual rewards. Achievements In a 2014 report the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) set out four scenarios for future warming based on different levels of emissions. The recent removal of the worst case, highest emissions scenario from the group of four has attracted considerable media comment. This scenario, known as RPC8.5 assumed continuing emissions with increased use of fossil fuels, resulting in a temperature rise of 4.5°C by 2100. (The notation refers to a level of radiative forcing of 8.5 watts per square metre). An article in The Conversation (2026) notes that climate change predictions must be revised in the light of new information and that RPC8.5 was removed because “climate action is starting to work”. Positi...

According to the Emissions Gap Report 2024 from the United Nations Environment Programme the world is on track for a global temperature rise of 2.6-2.8°C this century, and without improved policies “we are heading for a temperature rise of 3.1°C” (Andersen, 2024). Comment on the UNEP report referred to a ‘catastrophic’ rise in temperature , to greenhouse gas emissions which rose last year “by 1.3 percent over 2022 marks” and to the need for a “six-fold increase in mitigation investment” in order to achieve net zero (Musto, 2024). Our failure to take adequate action will be explored in this post using three sources. The first is “ The Dragons of Inaction: Psychological barriers that limit climate change mitigation and adaptation ” which is mainly concerned with the different types of restraint on individual action (Gifford, 2011). The second is the more recent paper “Understanding and Countering the Motivated Roots of Climate Change Denial” which builds on Gifford’s psychology of ina...

The Journal Current Opinion in Psychology had for the theme of its December 2021 issue the Psychology of Climate Change. Papers included in the issue addressed questions such as why, while most people care about environmental quality, they continue with practices that worsen climate change; which of our values are most relevant to climate change; why have so few countries prioritised climate change mitigation despite warnings from scientists over several decades; whether our social needs are key to behaviour concerning climate change; and how do ancestral psychological motivations shape our environmental decisions. Bouman, Steg and Perlaviciute (2021) argue that “to effectively mitigate and adapt to climate change, and to promote society-wide climate action, it is important to know what motivates individuals to support and take climate action”. They identify biospheric, altruistic, egoistic and hedonic values as those most relevant in the context of climate action. Biospheric values...

  Paying for carbon offsets is sometimes represented as an easy way for those with sufficient means to keep a clear conscience while maintaining a life style that produces high carbon emissions. This issue is discussed by Bourban and Broussois (2020) in their constructive criticism of the Effective Altruism movement and its search for the most effective ways to benefit others. The paper uses carbon offsets as an illustration of attitudes to individual responsibility. The authors cite a calculation showing that “an American’s annual emissions could be offset for a mere $300/year”, so that if “you earn enough money, you can donate some of it, without having to make any sacrifice, and get off the moral hook.” They also quote a suggestion that ‘rather than reducing your own greenhouse gas emissions, you pay for projects that reduce or avoid greenhouse gas emissions elsewhere’. This use of carbon offsets is contrasted with the view that personal integrity requires action to reduce one...

In her 2016 Ph.D. thesis Gillian Westcott examined the part played by subjective attitudes to climate change in determining the policy and actions of local authorities in South West England [1].   The research used interviews with officers and members of seven local authorities in the area, conducted during the years 2010 to 2013. While much has changed since then, the views expressed could well be relevant to today’s community energy workers and others who engage with local authorities on climate change issues. In addition to its central focus on individual subjectivity, worldview and motivation, the study investigated corporate culture, climate change denial, the influence of central government policy, local political realities, and institutional structure. The thesis is valuable in providing historical and theoretical background to climate change issues at international and national level through its review of the literature, however the emphasis in this article will be on ...