Rallying support for conserving biodiversity may prove easier than pushing action on climate change.
Promoting biodiversity conservation may be more popular across different worldviews than ones explicitly targeting climate action, according to a new study from Yokohama National University in Japan published in Communications Sustainability.
Among the 1,133 people who completed the survey, those with hierarchical worldviews tended to view climate change as less risky and were least supportive of climate policies. However, this negative association was weaker for biodiversity conservation measures that also contribute to climate goals and disappeared altogether for stand-alone biodiversity conservation measures, revealing that conservation-related policies may be less divisive across different cultural worldviews.
The study also found that participants with stronger personal and cultural connections with nature showed greater support for all types of environmental policy examined. Additionally, general scientific knowledge was positively associated with supporting policies for biodiversity conservation, including those linked to climate change.
The study’s authors caution that their findings do not indicate that the popularity of climate policies could be raised simply by reframing them as biodiversity conservation, since the policies included in the survey differed in their substance. Further studies are needed to test the relationship between worldviews and policy support experimentally by presenting the same policy in different ways, while keeping its substance unchanged.
