Nature-based and geo-engineering climate mitigation technologies: Public acceptance and security prospects
Climate change requires mitigation approaches, from nature-based to experimental geoengineering. We examined public attitudes toward six strategies—reforestation in previously forested areas, afforestation in new terrains, direct CO2 capture with underground storage, biomass energy with CO2 capture, stratospheric sulfate aerosols, and orbital mirrors—via a representative Czech survey (N = 3,007). Binary logistic regressions reveal how age, education, employment, and residence shape perceptions of efficacy, risks, and ethics. Results show strong favor for reforestation and afforestation due to ecological benefits and long-term promise; sulfate aerosols and orbital mirrors face skepticism. Surprisingly, participants with only primary education showed greater openness to geoengineering than university graduates. Older respondents favored biomass-based carbon capture but less so certain high-tech solutions. Our findings highlight the importance of policies aligned with diverse public views, ensuring both established and novel measures are harmonized into an effective climate mitigation strategy. These results indicate demographic contexts shape acceptance of climate interventions.
The entire article is available at the iScience website.
Authors: Václav Moravec, Nik Hynek, Beáta Gavurová, Matúš Kubák
The study uses data from the CEDMO Trends longitudinal survey, which is funded in the Czech Republic under project 1.4 CEDMO 1 – Z220312000000 Support for increasing the impact, innovation, and sustainability of CEDMO in the Czech Republic.
The study itself was produced as part of a project co-financed by the European Union under the DIGITAL-2023-DEPLOY-04 call, project 101158609. The content of the study reflects only the views of the authors, and the European Commission therefore accepts no responsibility for any use that may be made of the information contained therein.
