Motivating Personal Climate Action through a Safety and Health Risk Management Framework

Background: There is overwhelming evidence the impacts of climate change present a probable threat to personal health and safety. However, traditional risk management approaches have not been applied to ameliorate the crises. The purpose of this study was to assess the impact on personal motivation for action of a communication intervention that framed climate change as a safety issue that can be mitigated through a safety and health risk management framework. Participants’ perception of climate change in terms of its anthropogenicity, context and importance, perception as a personal threat, belief in the efficacy of human action, motivating drivers for action, knowledge of climate change impacts, perceived personal barriers to climate action, and short- and long-term preferences for mitigating actions were evaluated. In addition, this study assessed the role of personal worldview on motivation for climate action. Methods: Through an online survey instrument embedded with a communication/education intervention, data were collected from N = 273 participants. Pre and post-intervention responses were assessed using Wilcoxon signed-rank tests and descriptive statistics. A path analysis assessed the influence of anthropogenicity, personal impact, and human efficacy beliefs on participant motivation for action. Multi-regression analyses and descriptive statics were used to evaluate the role of worldview on participant motivation for climate action. Results: Personal motivation for action significantly increased post-intervention. Anthropogenicity, personal impact, and human efficacy beliefs were predictive of personal motivation. Those who prioritized climate change as a safety issue and those driven by a desire to protect current and future generations had higher levels of personal motivation, post-intervention. Knowledge of climate change increased, psychosocial factors as barriers to climate action decreased, and preferences for personal mitigating actions shifted towards more impactful choices post-intervention. Holding Egalitarian worldviews significantly predicted climate action motivation. Conclusion: Presenting climate change and climate action strategies via a traditional health and safety risk management context was effective in increasing personal motivation for climate action. This study contributes to the literature on climate change communication and climate action motivation.