While industries often delegate responsibility with the argumentation that they are only meeting the demand of the public, many citizens have likely never thought about what exactly powers their electricity. If fossil fuel reliant industries switched to renewable energies, all the people procuring their electricity there, would automatically reduce their carbon footprint,
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without institutions having to convince every single one of them of the moral and environmental rightness of this transformation (Cuomo, 2011).
Responsibility for governments can be divided into two subcategories, with functional responsibility referring to the actual policymaking duties, whereas causal responsibility describes the power an institution holds concerning the influence on shaping the public’s opinion on assignments of guilt (Wilson & Hobolt, 2015).
As to causal responsibility, a study of the European countries regarding the abilities of its citizens to correctly allocate responsibility in a multi-governance system, found that individuals with more political knowledge and centrist or ambivalent perspectives on the EU, living in countries with party polarisation, make more accurate assumptions. Hence, higher levels of politicisation result in more citizens correctly identifying responsible political actors (Wilson & Hobolt, 2015), thereby supporting social control mechanisms.
When looking at functional responsibility, governments must keep in mind how climate protection measurements will affect people of different classes, gender, race, age, and capabilities. Thus, they need to develop plans to enable a switch to sustainable lifestyles for everyone, for instance by sponsoring renewable energy productions in order to reduce clean electricity prices. Additionally, policies could include expanding national railway systems, reducing public transfer prices, and offering re-education for people working in sectors like coal mining to enable a smooth transition to sustainable economies without neglecting workers of the fossil fuel industry that would be rendered unemployed.
Politics cannot simply increase carbon pricing, while simultaneously doing little about underdeveloped public infrastructure that forces people to travel by car or leaves occupiers living in badly isolated houses with higher electricity costs, even though these are likely citizens with low income as they cannot afford new, pricey, well isolated houses.
5IMPLICATIONS
5.1RECOMMENDATIONS
Next to the question of moral responsibility, individual behavioural choices can be put into practice immediately once that decision has been made, whereas institutional change takes years if not decades to be implemented (Wynes & Nicholas, 2017).
An international study for developed countries by Wynes & Nicholas (2017) found that the four mitigation methods with the highest impact on reducing one’s carbon footprint are adopting a plant-based diet (0.8 tonnes CO2- equivalent (tCO2e) reduction per year), refraining from plane travelling (1.6 tCO2e reduction per roundtrip transatlantic flight), abstaining from car travel (2.4 tCO2e reduction per year) and most profoundly, having one fewer child (decline in 58.6 tCO2e per year).
Adolescents whose lifestyle choices will have a large impact on their lifelong emission footprint are an important target group for 𝐶𝑂2 reduction. Yet, as Wynes and Nicholas discovered, textbooks and government documents focused mainly on mitigation techniques with moderate or small impacts like recycling and energy conservation, also called the
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hanging fruit (Peeters et al., 2019; Wynes & Nicolas, 2017). Therefore, education on more effective individual footprint reduction, as well as an understanding of the fundamental economic and societal circumstances which led to the climate crisis, should be obligatory teachings in school.
Nicolai et al. (in preparation) conducted a study in Germany, where they asked for the willingness of people to continue or adapt more sustainable behaviour in 2021. They found that the largest enthusiasm for implementing environmentally friendly lifestyle changes lay with measures that have been part of public campaigns or on political agendas for the past few years, such as abstaining from using plastic bags for grocery shopping, buying regional food, or switching off electronic devices instead of using the stand-by mode. Adaptation methods like a vegetarian diet or washing clothes with lower temperatures showed only moderate to low willingness of change. The lowest alacrity to transform an unsustainable behaviour was to dispense with using a car for short distances of up to 20 km (Nicolai et al., in preparation). Therefore, next to teaching about methods with higher impact in school, media campaigns should also explain and promote the more potent practices.
Moreover, Wynes and Nicholas state that the willingness to implement high impact changes improves when their effectiveness is understood. Despite that, cultural norms still have the power to stifle putting a vegan diet for example into action or avoiding travelling by car when the transport system lacks range (Wynes & Nicholas, 2017). Additionally, prices for public transport, especially short distance services, have risen significantly in Germany over the past 30 years, whereas using a car is cheaper nowadays than it was in the 60s and 70s. To reconcile this disparity, German railway lobby groups have suggested to dispense the train industry from the tax on electricity which would reduce prices for customers (Nefzger, Der Spiegel, Jan. 2021).
Tompkins and Eakin (2012) focus on how to increase the motivation of individuals. For altruistic citizens appealing to moral responsibility might work, however, only relying on empathy often is not enough for groups with a more monetary focus. Here, economic incentives such as changes in the market, regulations, or compensation for adopting more sustainable lifestyles might prove more effective. Regardless of that, these methods also come with obstacles as people frequently are not willing to spend public money on individuals when the consequences are for example increased property values. Additionally, the possibility of free-riders makes those options less appealing to many citizens (Tompkins & Eakin, 2012).
Centralising rights by involving a third party that manages the implementation, could increase efficiency and lower transaction costs. Privileged groups with enough monetary means can be targeted with voluntary individual action such as carbon-offsetting, which finances damage reparations or development of more environmentally friendly innovations. This method seems to be more effective when a social contract (Tompkins & Eakin, 2012) is involved where approval by the community can function as a reward to motivate.
While knowledge and information regarding an adaption of sustainable practices is not enough to motivate all groups, it is essential for developing public trust in actions taken by
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the government by understanding the reasons and impact of regulations or subventions (Tompkins & Eakin, 2012).