Perceptions of CO2 Report - Global CCS Institute

Recommendations derived from this work may be summarised as follows:• Efforts to promote dialog and understanding about CCS should incorporateinformation on CO 2 ’s properties and chemistry. Research found a limited knowledgebase among respondents. In the absence of such knowledge, members of the public maybe unclear on how to perceive CO 2 , and may subscribe to a variety of mistaken beliefs.• Balanced and complete information on CO 2 ’s properties should be made available.When communicating this information, it is important to include CO 2 ’s effects on humansand the environment (e.g., potential for soot-like effects and toxicity). Information regardingCO 2 ’s scientific and chemical properties was shown to have a weak but significant positiveeffect on CCS perceptions.• Topics deemed important by respondents should be addressed by communicators.The variation of reactions, anxieties, and beliefs amongst respondents highlighted theimportance of accounting for these in communication and education efforts regarding CO 2and CCS. Any effort to engage in dialogue with the public regarding CCS should be basedon an inventory and understanding of public levels of knowledge and information needs.This information can be collected through a baseline survey, as described in theCommunication/Engagement toolkit for CCS projects (Ashworth et al. 2011a).• Care should be taken in describing CO 2 natural phenomena. It is important to presentopen and transparent information, such as on incidents during which naturally-occurringCO 2 has harmed people, plants, and animals (i.e., the Lake Nyos 4 and Mount Mammoth 5events). Information on natural phenomena involving CO 2 had a weak but significantnegative effect on CCS perceptions, suggesting that people use these descriptions ofnatural phenomena to make inferences about CCS, CO 2 and its effects.• Care should be taken in describing the behaviour of CO 2 in the CCS process.Conveying correct and complete information on CO 2 ’s behaviour is important because thisunderstanding will be helpful to mitigate misunderstandings that can arise whenrespondents receive incomplete or indirect information about CCS.• Many members of the public still require basic information on climate change, CCS,and their relationship to CO 2 emissions. Awareness of these topics does not directlyimply knowledge, as for example, more participants indicated having heard of CCS than didactually understanding what it is.• Additional CCS education and outreach campaigns should be planned through lessformalmechanisms. Given that the correlation between trust in informal sources andpoorer understanding of CCS, sole reliance on the formal information and communicationsources (i.e., public sector organisations, local government, national newspapers, andscientists) may not reach the people with the poorest understanding of CCS, who insteadplace their trust in NGOs, friends, and the internet.4 In 1986, naturally-occurring CO 2 was released from Lake Nyos in Cameroon, killing animals and 1,700 people.5 At the Mount Mammoth volcano in the United States, a large volume of CO2 seeping from underground has been killing trees.viii | Understanding how individuals perceive carbon dioxide