| Climate change poses enormous challenges to the development of global society and is a serious threat to the ability of all regions of the world,especially developing countries,to maintain and enhance sustainable development.As the theme of global sustainable development shifts from environmental management to climate governance,relevant climate governance policies with public participation and implementation become increasingly important.The premise and basis for the rational formulation of climate change related policies is the public’s scientific understanding of climate change,namely residents’ cognition of climate change.At present,the research on the cognition of residents of climate change has not yet formed a unified holistic theory,and the research is mainly concentrated on the vulnerable groups in developed and developing countries.The existing methods of investigation and research vary,often with time series intervals,lack of internal connections,and take a case study to represent the whole,etc,which may lead to greater uncertainty in the cognitive results of residents.For further exploration of the current status of residents’ climate change perception and its influencing factors,this research has carried out related research in both theoretical and empirical aspects from a multidisciplinary perspective.On the one hand,under the premise of combing the cognitive process of climate change,this research studies the residents’ climate change perception by constructing multi-source and multi-heterogeneous climate change cognition paradigms,summarizing the subjective views of climate change residents’ cognition and revealing common view: The public’s climate change cognition is a cognitive paradigm based on the climate change system,with the subjective cognition of the individual under the influence of the social environment as the leading,and guided by social decision system.On the other hand,under the guidance of the cognitive paradigm,a field survey was conducted in 31 provinces of China by combining questionnaire survey and interview,and collected data on the status of climate change cognition and its influencing factors among Chinese residents,validated the effectiveness of traditional research methods and analyzed the environmental attitudes of residents in climate-sensitive environments.The specific research results are as follows:(1)Studying the public sensitivity of climate change issues,the causes and impacts of residents’ concerns,the government’s response to climate change perceptions,and then analyzing the interrelationships among residents’ climate change perception-related factors.Residents’ climate change perceptions are combined with their own living environment perceptions to obtain external climate information in their communication with the social environment.In this process,the education level of the individual residents is the main influencing factor,and the degree of trust in government is also crucial.Government decision-making and individual behavioral decision-making not only directly practice climate change policies,but also play an important guiding role in residents’ climate change perception.(2)Chinese residents’ climate change perception has unique characteristics: Climate change is widely recognized,and climate change perception takes climate change as the background and premise;Most Chinese residents have a relatively low level of awareness of climate change,and residents’ perceptions and behaviors about climate change are inconsistent.Residents tend to think that climate change is more likely to be caused by human behavior,while respondents with opposite views are less likely or unwilling to take action to mitigate climate change;Most agree with the impact of human activities on climate change and support national and local climate change policies and interventions;Most people express their concern for natural resources and environmental security,and are therefore willing to change their behavior.Based on the empirical findings of climate change in Chinese residents,this study proposes the following policy recommendations:(1)To expand the publicity of climate change knowledge and raise public awareness of climate change issues;(2)It is necessary for relevant departments to make access to climate change related information more convenient to increase residents’ attention to climate change;(3)The government should actively guide public participation and adopt appropriate fiscal and taxation policies to mitigate and adapt to climate change;(4)Strengthening school education on climate change on the basis of further improving the education level of residents;(5)Social communication is also one of the key factors affecting the perception of climate change,so it is necessary to establish an effective dialogue mechanism between different groups. |
