Perceptions of CO2 Report - Global CCS Institute

was flammable or explosive. Substantial uncertainty existed over whether CO 2 affects humans inthe same way as carbon monoxide. Few respondents could describe uses for CO 2 . Likewise, manyresearch participants had misperceptions regarding the mechanism of climate change: theseparticipants believed that CO 2 emissions caused ozone depletion, thereby leading to climatechange. This confirms the results of earlier research in Australia, conducted during October 2010,in which 59% of Australian respondents believed that “the hole in the ozone layer contributes toclimate change” (Ashworth, Jeanneret, Gardner, & Shaw, 2011).Awareness of CCS was generally low, with greater awareness among residents of the Netherlandsthan of Japan or Australia. This may relate to substantial media attention to the Barendrecht CCSproject between 2008 and 2010 (Feenstra et al., 2010). Perceptions of CCS also varied betweeneach country. After the presentation of basic information on the technology during interviews andfocus groups, Japanese respondents tended to regard CCS favourably, whereas the majority inAustralia regarded CCS negatively, while perceptions were mixed in the Netherlands. Overall,respondents from the focus groups and interviews did not tend to support implementing CCS neartheir homes. Survey respondents were generally more favourable to offshore rather than onshorestorage while the differences in extent of opposition between onshore and offshore vary amongthree countries (in Japan it was smallest 2 ). More broadly, participants from all three countriestended to agree that to a certain extent, society should accept some risks in relation to newtechnologies; and also tended to be averse to paying additional tax to address climate change.The information about CO 2 provided in the interviews, focus groups, and surveys promoted greaterunderstanding and to a certain extent dispelled previous misperceptions held by somerespondents, but it did not dramatically change perceptions and opinions on CCS. Importantly,survey results showed that information on natural phenomena involving CO 2 3 , and on CO 2 ’sbehaviour in CCS, had a weak but significant negative effect on CCS perceptions, whereasinformation on CO 2 ’s properties and chemistry had a positive effect. Furthermore, interviewparticipants considered descriptions of CO 2 ’s behaviour in CCS and its natural patterns ofoccurrence to be important, even though such information did not dramatically change theirperceptions and opinions. Almost all misperceptions about CO 2 correlated with misperceptionsabout CCS.These findings highlight the importance of providing basic and wide-ranging information on CO 2 aspart of CCS communications. In addition, the variety of respondent reactions signals the value ofaddressing this variation in beliefs throughout future communication efforts.One interesting result from this research was the strong relationship between participants’tendency to believe in the credibility of certain information and communication sources and theirknowledge of CCS topics. Trust in national NGOs, local NGOs, friends, and the internet—asopposed to public sector organisations, local government, national newspapers, and scientists—was negatively correlated with correct understanding of CCS. This has serious implications forCCS communications, as it suggests that the same members of the public who are less likely totrust public sector and scientific sources may also be the people with the poorest understanding ofCCS.2 In the previous study in Japan, there was a similar result about support for offshore /onshore in a questionnaire survey (MizuhoInformation & Research Institute 2010). In the same study, it was found that respondents raised spatial contiguity as the main reason forthe support of offshore storage over onshore storage in focus groups (Mizuho Information & Research Institute 2010). We wouldinterpret it would be one of the reasons for the small difference in support between offshore and onshore that a large part of Japanesepopulation resided sea coast areas.3 “Natural phenomena involving CO 2 “originally means analogical phenomena of CCS involving CO2 The information sheets includes,natural ‘CO2 leakage events’, natural or accidental human exposure to higher concentration CO2 and natural CO2 reservoir.Understanding how individuals perceive carbon dioxide | vii