Climate Change Politics: Communication and Public Engagement By ...

finding effective responses. Nonetheless, as illustrated by Whitmarsh, O’Neill, and Lorenzoni’s (2010, pp. 2–3) recent book, understandings of citizen engagement vary significantly, as do the goals and values of those engaged in engaging the public:

Most Western governments have an interest in engaging the public in debate about the type of society they want to live in and empowering communities to bring about change to that effect. Here, the focus is on public participation in policy making, community decision making and grassroots innovation.… For other groups there may be different reasons for being interested in the public’s understanding of and responses to climate change. Businesses may be involved with formal climate change communication as part of a corporate social responsibility or a product marketing agenda (and often both); and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) may do so because climate change intersects with their existing environmental and social concerns and interests.

We argue that at least three modes of public engagement are associated with different views of climate change politics and communication. They range from social marketing and public participation to agonistic pluralism. The first mode of public engagement with climate change, which provides the lightest form of social intervention, involves persuading individual citizens to voluntarily modify some aspect of their energy-related behavior or accept some policy proposal that typically stays within the limits of existing economic and institutional structures (Moser & Dilling, 2007; Nisbet, 2009). In the last decade or so, multiple social actors have promoted the idea that “we should all do our bit.” From government to civil groups, numerous organizations call for small acts, such as switching to low-consumption lightbulbs and unplugging appliances not in use. Some throw flying in the spotlight and advocate carbon offsetting. In all these examples, responsibility for climate change is individualized and the political realm is reduced to lifestyle choices. People are typically addressed as individual consumers rather than as communities that can act collectively on climate change.