Key takeaways

A study from the ANU School of Medicine and Psychology suggests Australians may not realise how much others care about climate change. The findings also revealed who we see as caring the most and least about climate change.

Experts asked Australians to rate their own concern about climate change, and the concern of a typical Australian. They grouped respondents by ethnicity and where they lived: in urban, rural or regional Australia.

They wanted to find answers to the following questions:

• Do Australians underestimate migrants’ climate concern more than non-migrants?
• Does our ethnic background make a difference to these beliefs?
• Is there a rural-urban divide in our expectations of climate concern?

What they found was:

• All groups underestimated the climate concern of their foreign-born peers.
• All groups underestimated the climate concern of members of their own ethnic group. This effect was stronger for Asian-identifying respondents.
• All groups underestimated concern among people who live in cities. People living outside cities were more likely to underestimate city-dwellers.

They concluded that:

• Australians typically underestimate actual climate concern in others in absolute terms.
• Australians also expect to be more concerned than the people around us about climate change.

The researchers explored how these beliefs affect our behaviour and found that those who expect others to care less may, consequently, become less committed to climate action themselves.

Past evidence has shown that activism is highly norm dependent. We’re more comfortable doing what we expect others to do too. Climate action is no exception.

The researchers also identified our underestimation of migrants’ climate concern as potentially problematic. This is because some Australians may conflate environmental sustainability with population control.

Finally, the experts concluded that these misperceptions are likely to affect our behaviour. Specifically, they could make us less likely to get involved in climate action.

Top image: William/Stock.adobe.com