Background
Nuclear energy is a low carbon technology and could be used to reduce greenhouse emissions from our energy use, and thus the climate change problem. One would therefore expect that people that see more climate change risks have a more positive attitude towards nuclear. A review study found that while some studies indeed find a positive relation, the majority of studies actually find a negative relation between the two (Durdovic et al., 2024). In this study we investigate what currently the relation is between climate change concern and attitudes towards nuclear and what can explain a negative relationship between those.
As governments are discussing whether or not to have more nuclear power plants to combat climate change, and since public opinion has an important influence on political decision making about climate policy and about nuclear energy, it is important to understand how public attitudes on climate change and on nuclear energy are related, and why.
One explanation for the unexpected negative relationship between climate change concern and attitudes towards nuclear may be the role of biospheric values and perceived risks of nuclear energy for the biosphere. Research shows that people that more strongly endorse biospheric values have a higher climate change risk perception (Martin, 2023). Second, research also shows that people that more strongly endorse biospheric values have a more negative attitude towards nuclear energy (De Groot et al., 2013; Perlaviciute & Steg, 2015). It may thus be that since biospheric values lead to both more climate change risk perception and a lower nuclear energy attitude, biospheric values indirectly cause the negative relation between climate change risk perception. You will investigate the relationships between these variables empirically in a survey study.
Research questions
What is the relationship between climate concern and attitude about nuclear energy?
How do biospheric values influence climate concern and attitude about nuclear energy?
Which other predictors can influence the relationship between climate concern and attitude about nuclear energy and what is their effect?
Type of research
Survey research
Keywords
Nuclear energy, climate change, biospheric values
Information
If you are interested in this topic, please contact Steven Watson via s.j.watson@utwente.nl.
Literature
De Groot, J. I. M., Steg, L., & Poortinga, W. (2013). Values, Perceived Risks and Benefits, and Acceptability of Nuclear Energy. Risk Analysis, 33(2), 307–317. https://doi.org/10.1111/J.1539-6924.2012.01845.X
Durdovic, M., Turcanu, C., Sala, R., Geysmans, R., López-Asensio, S., & Gonçalves, L. (2024). The outlooks of nuclear energy in society: Unraveling public attitudes in the context of climate and energy security challenges. Progress in Nuclear Energy, 174, 105286. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pnucene.2024.105286
Martin, C. (2023). Biospheric values as predictor of climate change risk perception: A multinational investigation. Risk Analysis, 43(9), 1855–1870. https://doi.org/10.1111/risa.14083
Perlaviciute, G., & Steg, L. (2015). The influence of values on evaluations of energy alternatives. Renewable Energy, 77, 259–267. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.renene.2014.12.020