Human health as a motivator for climate change mitigation

• Verfasst von: Amelung, Dorothee [VerfasserIn]
• Verfasst von: Fischer, Helen [VerfasserIn]
• Verfasst von: Herrmann, Alina [VerfasserIn]
• Verfasst von: Louis, Valérie R. [VerfasserIn]
• Verfasst von: Sauerborn, Rainer [VerfasserIn]
• Titel: Human health as a motivator for climate change mitigation
• Titelzusatz: results from four European high-income countries
• Verf.angabe: Dorothee Amelung, Helen Fischer, Alina Herrmann, Carlo Aall, Valerie R. Louis, Heiko Becher, Paul Wilkinson, Rainer Sauerborn
• E-Jahr: 2019
• Jahr: July 2019
• Umfang: 9 S.
• Teil: volume:57
• Teil: year:2019
• Teil: pages:101918
• Teil: extent:9
• Fussnoten: Gesehen am 13.01.2020
• Titel Quelle: Enthalten in: Global environmental change
• Ort Quelle: Amsterdam [u.a.] : Elsevier, 1990
• Jahr Quelle: 2019
• Band/Heft Quelle: 57(2019), Seite 101918
• ISSN Quelle: 1872-9495
• DOI: doi:10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2019.05.002
• Datenträger: Online-Ressource
• Sprache: eng
• Sach-SW: Behavior
• Sach-SW: Climate change
• Sach-SW: Health
• Sach-SW: Health co-benefits
• Sach-SW: Household preferences
• Sach-SW: Mitigation
• K10plus-PPN: 1687198470

Abstract

Invoking health benefits to promote climate-friendly household behavior has three unique advantages: (i) health co-benefits accrue directly to the acting individual, they are "private goods" rather than public ones; (ii) the evidence base for, and magnitude of health co-benefits is well-established; and (iii) the idea of a healthy life-style is well-engrained in public discourse, much more so than that of a climate-friendly life-style. In previous research, assessing the influence of information on health effects on people’s motivation to adopt mitigation actions, health co-benefits for the individual were typically confounded with collective health co-benefits, for example from pollution reduction. The present research aims to overcome this limitation by providing information on individual health co-benefits that are unconditional on the actions of others (direct health co-benefits). We report effects of this kind of health information on stated willingness to adopt mitigation actions as well as on simulation-based carbon emission reductions in a pre-registered experimental setting among 308 households in 4 mid-size case-study cities in 4 European high-income countries: France, Germany, Norway and Sweden. For each mitigation action from the sectors food, housing, and mobility, half of the sample received the amount of CO2equivalents (CO2-eq) saved and the financial costs or savings the respective action generated. The other half additionally received information on direct health co-benefits, where applicable. For households receiving information on direct health co-benefits, we find a higher mean willingness to adopt food and housing actions, and a greater proportion very willing to adopt one or more mitigation actions (OR 1.86, 95% CI 1.1, 3.12); and a greater simulated reduction in overall carbon footprint: difference in percent reduction -2.70%, (95% CI -5.34, -0.04) overall and -4.45%, (95% CI -8.26, -0.64) for food. Our study is the first to show that providing information on strictly unconditional, individual health co-benefits can motivate households in high-income countries to adopt mitigation actions.