Climate change: the ‘believe-true’ gap

It is often said that there is a ‘say-do’ gap in respect of the environment and climate change; for example, people are concerned about packaging, want to see interventions and initiatives but relatively few say they will actually go out of their way and change what they do. Something else is now evident — a ‘believe-true’ gap — a difference between perception and reality.

New research by Ipsos across 30 countries to coincide with Earth Day, finds a continued sense of urgency across the globe. People want government action on climate change and expect to play their part too. Seven in ten agree that if ordinary people do not act now to combat climate change they will be ‘failing future generations’.

The same proportion agree that they ‘understand what action I need to take to play my part in tackling climate change’. However, expectation of making pro-environmental changes over the coming year remains in line with levels recorded back in 2014. People may feel they know what actions they can take, but they are no more likely than they were seven years ago to think they will actually take them.

Another survey shows that people are often mistaken in thinking that they know what they can do and that many do not grasp the scale of the challenge. Climate change already displaces more people than conflict but only a minority know this, and as few as one in twenty-five know that all of the last six years were among the hottest on record.

People underestimate high-impact actions such as taking flights, and overestimate lower-impact actions such as avoiding excess packaging. In another example, the public guess that eating local meat rather than imported plants would have a bigger bearing on your carbon footprint than switching to a plant-based diet, but the opposite is true.

This represents a double blow; the public are not sure what they can do to address a problem that is even worse than they think. On top of this, just 31% agree their government has a clear plan in place for how government, businesses and people are going to work together to tackle climate change (almost all of the countries in the Ipsos survey have submitted and published plans to tackle climate change).

Gaps between perception and reality are not uncommon and reflect all sorts of innate human biases. Regardless of their causes, they pose difficulties for policy-makers; a ‘believe-true’ gap can feed a ‘say-do’ one.

People and governments no longer need permission to talk about addressing climate change and what Net Zero requires. But they do need clarity. While all actions can make a difference, and are welcome, collective understanding of their relative impact is vital too. Closing the ‘believe-true’ and ‘say-do’ gaps will open up more progress.

Survey sources:

https://www.ipsos.com/sites/default/files/ct/news/documents/2021-04/G%40%20Earth%20Day%202021.pdf

https://www.ipsos.com/en-be/ipsos-perils-perception-climate-change