Public understanding of climate change terminology
Public understanding of climate change terminology
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DOI：
10.1007/s10584-021-03183-0
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发表时间：
2021-08-01
期刊：
影响因子：
4.8
通讯作者：
Ignon, Lance
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
de Bruin, Wandi Bruine;Rabinovich, Lila;Ignon, Lance
联合国政府间气候变化专门委员会（IPCC）和其他机构向没有气候科学背景的不同受众（包括普通公众）传达气候变化信息。这些沟通的有效性部分取决于所提供术语的理解程度。在定性访谈中，我们研究了美国居民如何解读 IPCC 报告中的关键术语，包括临界点、前所未有的转型、碳中和、二氧化碳去除、适应、缓解、可持续发展和突变。我们从具有全国代表性的样本中招募了 20 名对气候变化持有不同观点的参与者。我们确定了共同的主题和误解。总体而言，88%的主题是在第十次采访时出现的，第十七次采访后没有出现新的主题。减缓、碳中和和前所未有的转型被认为是最难理解的。适应和突变被认为是最容易理解的。然而，即使一个术语似乎被理解了，参与者并不总是清楚它如何应用于气候变化。参与者倾向于利用非气候环境的心理模型，其中术语具有不同的含义。由于使用了复杂的语言，阅读交流材料中句子上下文中的术语并不总是有帮助。根据参与者的解释和科学传播文献，我们为每个术语的传播提供建议。一般来说，建议是简化措辞，明确与气候变化的联系，并描述基本过程。我们的研究结果与 IPCC 和其他机构的气候变化沟通相关。
The United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and other institutions communicate about climate change to diverse audiences without a background in climate science, including the general public. The effectiveness of these communications depends in part on how well the presented terminology is understood. In qualitative interviews, we examined how US residents interpreted key terms drawn from IPCC reports, including tipping point, unprecedented transition, carbon neutral, carbon dioxide removal, adaptation, mitigation, sustainable development, and abrupt change. We recruited twenty participants with diverse views on climate change from a nationally representative sample. We identified common themes and misunderstandings. Overall, 88% of the themes arose by the tenth interview, and no new themes arose after the seventeenth interview. Mitigation, carbon neutral, and unprecedented transition were perceived as the most difficult to understand. Adaptation and abrupt change were perceived as the easiest to understand. However, even if a term appeared to be understood, participants were not always clear about how it applied to climate change. Participants tended to draw on their mental models of non-climate contexts where terms had different meanings. Reading the terms in the context of sentences taken from communication materials was not always helpful due to the use of complex language. Based on participants' interpretations and the science communication literature, we provide suggestions for communicating about each term. Generally, recommendations are to simplify wording, make links to climate change explicit, and describe underlying processes. Our findings are relevant to climate change communications by the IPCC and other institutions.