Conference Agenda

he paper presents the SOFI (Smart Organic Food Initiative) project implemented by the Polytechnic in Križevci as a leading partner together with the Community Economy Association (UEZ) from Križevci, the Center for Lifelong Learning (SCU) from Travnik (BiH), and the Starkmacher Association from Mannheim (Germany) within the framework of the European Climate Initiative (EUKI). The goal of the project is to initiate new, ecologically acceptable decisions and solutions in the agricultural sector through education, creation of climate action plans for Križevci and Travnik, and research on the impact of local agriculture and the potential of ecological agriculture on climate change and biodiversity. Emphasizing the potential of ecologically smart agriculture, the project initiates a green transition in agriculture in the researched areas. The target groups in the project are agricultural producers and students of agriculture, consumers as end users in the food supply chain, and municipalities, interest associations, educational institutions and other stakeholders. The goal of the project is to initiate the initiation of new, environmentally friendly decisions and solutions in the agricultural sector through activities, results and outcomes. Therefore, the paper will emphasize the activities and narratives realized so far about sustainable and ecological farming practices, agrotourism, promotion, mechanization and digitalization, as well as the importance of biodiversity in agro-ecosystems in the context of future trends in agriculture.

The city of Križevci aims to become a 100% climate neutral city by 2030. Given that the city is surrounded by rural areas, achieving climate neutrality is not possible without the involvement of local agricultural stakeholders.

Attempts to mitigate climate change via macro-level and industry-focused apparatus are often stymied due to political power imbalances and restrictive techno-economic orthodoxies. This impasse, weighted against the appreciable role of national electorates and micro-level activities towards reducing greenhouse gas emissions, has triggered increased policy focus on individual-level mitigation actions and supportive public infrastructure. As such, public engagement, prioritising promotion of “bottom-up” behaviours and policymaking, has emerged as an increasingly viable form of climate change management. Existing behavioural research distinguishes trust in scientific expertise as a central influence on individual-level climate change mitigation as well as adaptation and policy advocacy. Amid recent escalations in climate crises and enhanced visibility of technocratic institutions globally, the gravity of trust attribution vis-à-vis climate change is heightened and thus merits concerted attention for policymakers. While previous research has broached the dimensionality of trust relating to climate science and associated policies, modes of engagement with educational material and trust attribution in a deliberative, expert-delivered setting are underexplored. Adoption of qualitative research methodologies investigating taxonomies of expert engagement/trust attribution and associated frames of reference concerning climate change acceptance may serve to illuminate potential avenues for future public engagement and trust-building. To this end, this paper utilises contextual data from the ESS rotating modules on Climate Change and COVID-19, and qualitative data from Deliberative Mini Publics (DMPs), to examine individual level attitudes to climate change in the UK and Ireland, and trust in science vis-a-via trust in politicians and political institutions. Deliberative Mini Publics (DMPs) were undertaken in London (UK) and Dublin (Ireland) in late 2022 and early 2023 as part of structured, expert-delivered workshops on solutions to climate change in urban area. Participants were variously requested to evaluate the credibility of predetermined stakeholder groups and domain-specific experts, in addition to specifying their personal degree of climate change knowledge and propounding potential policy solutions. At a national level, ESS data demonstrates high levels of trust in science, but relatively low levels of concern towards climate change in both countries, and low levels of willingness to change individual behaviour. Preliminary findings from the DMPs elucidate some of the reasoning behind these findings and indicate broad levels of climate acknowledgement but a more moderate, labile attribution of climate change importance predicated upon personal experience, psychological distance and intergenerational/family ties. Participants in the DMPs indicated medium-to-high willingness to adopt mitigative behaviours (e.g., reduced private vehicle use) conditional on the delivery of enhanced, polycentric urban transport infrastructure. The study suggests attribution of trust and importance relating to climate change phenomena and policy are linked to personal circumstance and current provision of infrastructure.

Considering the growing concern about climate change and the impact it will have on the lives of citizens, it is more necessary than ever to study their attitudes towards the environment and policies to fight it, especially in more polluted places such as big cities. The Pilot Application in Urban Landscapes (PAUL) project, within the Integrated Carbon Observation System (ICOS Cities) network and in collaboration with ESS ERIC, aims to introduce the social dimension of pollution measurement by conducting a three-wave panel survey in Paris and Munich from 2023 to 2025 to explore citizens’ attitudes towards public policies to mitigate climate change, urban air quality, energy use and transport, among other topics. The presentation will cover the design of the survey, preliminary results from the first waves, and how survey data can be mixed with environmental data to improve the findings.

1. Overview.

“Climate change and environmental degradation are an existential threat to Europe” (European Commission, 2019). A question for Europe is how to form a will and organize social structures to align with an inclusive development within our planetary boundaries and the framework of the Sustainable Development Goals.

In this context, the European Social Survey (ESS) provides a precious dataset to identify the drivers affecting the households’ concern about climate change.

2. Our research question

We intend to use the ESS data to ascertain to what extent specific indicators - which are non-monetary and usually considered as marginal - can influence the concern for climate change in Europe.

3. Methods.

ESS data were processed using R and Gretl. For each country, a different number of sample units within the same time period was collected, and only two different time periods were collected (i.e. that are distant less than one year), and cannot be used as a time unit. Therefore, a panel analysis is unfeasible. In turn, we needed to subset it in order to compute regressions for each country in an iterative way.

Likert-scaled variables are poorly suitable for econometrically quantifiable analysis unless we reasonably interpret them as an unconventional sorted list. It is feasible to calculate accordingly because [i] outliers have been removed; [ii] all responses have been handled as numeric scores ranging from the lowest to the highest in respect to an environmentally-oriented attitude by preventing the “curse of dimensionality”; [iii] no multicollinearity has been found (i.e. VIF < 1.6).

4. Results, Conclusions, and Recommendations

Concern for climate change is a widespread trend, while many “non-climate related” predictors (Plottu and Plottu, 2007; Smirnova, 2018) are statistically relevant for one country but negligible for another. Moreover, cross-country evidence highlights the importance of altruistic attitudes as the top cross-country predictor. This is far from being trivial, and it contributes to explain why it is hard to find statistically robust cross-country evidence about these alternative predictors.

A better understanding of the motivations underlying the concern for climate change in Europe will help to tailor policies and incentives as well as education programmes.

5. Short reference list.

Baiardi. D., & Morana, C. (2021). Climate change awareness: Empirical evidence for the European Union, Energy Economics, 96, 105163

European Commission (2019, December 11). Press Release The European Green Deal

European Social Survey – ESS (2023a). ESS9 – integrated file, edition 3.2. doi:10.21338/ess9e03_2

European Social Survey – ESS (2023b). ESS10 – integrated file, edition 3.2. doi:10.21338/ess10e03_2

Plottu, E., & Plottu, B. (2007). The concept of Total Economic Value of Environment: a reconsideration within a hierarchical rationality. Ecological Economics, 61(1):52–61.

Smirnova, J. (2018). Acquisition of environmental awareness: the interplay with institutional development. International Journal of Economics and Finance, 10(3): 168-180.

Tiwari A. K., Nasreen, S., Shahbaz, M., & Hammoudeh S. (2020). Time-frequency causality and connectness between international prices of energy, food, industry, agriculture and metals. Energy Economics, 85:104529.