Economy & Society: Public Engagement and Risk Perception

In this episode, Professor David Beerling is joined by Professor Nick Pidgeon of Cardiff University to explore some of the novel insights from the social sciences work of the LC3M programme – and what it can tell us about possible ethical dilemmas and public responses to the idea of carbon removal and enhanced weathering.

They begin by explaining the ethical dilemma of mitigation deterrence – an idea that arose first in connection with insurance. The hypothesis is that, by providing a technology such as carbon removal for avoiding some aspects of climate risk this in turn might lead us or politicians to lose motivation to enact some of the difficult mitigation decisions which we know are essential in the fight against climate change. Although hard to prove directly it is a key ethical worry for many who study carbon removal.

Nick describes some of the results of the LC3M empirical studies using surveys and deliberative workshops to understand public responses. People often accept new technologies for the benefits they bring, but only subject to certain conditions. In the case of carbon removal technology, it’s clear from our research that one critical condition is that deployment must always go hand-in-hand with extensive and transparent conventional mitigation efforts. Otherwise, people will quickly become uncomfortable, even outraged, if they suspect mitigation deterrence and greenwashing.

They conclude the podcast with reflections on some of our findings regarding attitudes towards the mining and resource extraction aspect of enhanced weathering. Nick explains these will differ by region, local geography and experiences with mining, and the histories of past extraction in a region.