Surveys on climate change show that support for climate protection is related to a person’s sociodemographic characteristics. The lower the income and education, the less they view climate change as an urgent problem, the less they participate in climate protection, and the less they see it as necessary. As a student group, we suspect that not only individual characteristics and factors such as unfair cost distribution play a role here, but also spatially unevenly distributed climate protection projects within a city. In our project, we are therefore using Hamburg as an example to reconstruct where climate protection projects are taking place and whether the distribution is systematically related to the social structure of Hamburg’s districts. Our results can contribute to making Hamburg’s climate policy more socially just and thus promote the acceptance of climate protection.
Overall, climate change is perceived by the vast majority as a significant threat. In a recent Eurobarometer survey, 93% of all Europeans stated that climate change is a “very serious” to “fairly serious” problem for the world [1, p. 23]. More than half (58%) believe that the transition to a green economy should be accelerated [1, p. 23].
Despite this broad recognition of the danger, noticeable differences emerge depending on the socioeconomic status of the respondents. It is striking that the more educated and wealthy a person is, and the higher they rate themselves socially, the more likely they are to classify climate change as a major problem. Conversely, hunger, poverty, and the economic situation are identified as the main problems by less educated and wealthy persons [1, pp. 14, 22]. The same pattern is evident in private climate protection measures, such as increased recycling, less meat consumption, and attitudes toward institutional climate protection measures. The lower the social status, the less initiative is taken to combat climate change, and the lower the acceptance and perceived necessity of a variety of measures, especially the energy transition [1].
In our research project, we address this connection between climate protection projects and the participation, acceptance, and perceived necessity of climate protection, depending on socioeconomic status. We suspect that social differences in support for climate protection can be exacerbated not only by individual characteristics [5], unequal cost distribution, and the (perceived) burden on different actors [2], but also by local differences in the implementation of climate protection projects within a city. We assume that socially disadvantaged people are on average less supportive of climate protection because they may not have sufficient exposure to it in their immediate environment. Initial research results point to a positive correlation between the acceptance of climate protection measures and their actual implementation locally, as well as to “spatial diffusion processes” between neighboring districts [3, p. 20]. If it can also be assumed that participation, acceptance, and perceived necessity of climate protection at the individual level depend on a person’s socioeconomic status [1, pp. 14, 22], then it can also be concluded at the context level that climate protection projects are socially unequally distributed locally, as evidenced by the fact that people with low social status are, on average, less supportive of climate protection. This can presumably have an even stronger effect when, as in Hamburg, socially disadvantaged areas are concentrated, mostly spatially separated from areas with a very high social status [4, p. 18].
Our research project aims to analyze how climate protection differs between Hamburg’s districts and whether the distribution of climate protection projects correlates with the social structure of the districts. To this end, we are pursuing the following research questions:
- Where are climate protection projects being implemented in Hamburg?
- To what extent do climate protection projects implemented by different actors (city/civil society) differ in their spatial location?
- How is the social structure of a district related to the climate protection projects implemented there?
- What implications arise from the (un)equal distribution of climate protection projects?
At the end of the project, the results will be visible in an interactive map. This will provide a clear overview of potential clusters and differences between districts, actors, and potentially different types of climate protection projects.
References:
[1] Europäische Kommission (2023): Climate Change, Special Eurobarometer 538, Report. DOI: 10.2834/653431
[2] Holzmann, Sara und Wolf, Ingo (2023): Klimapolitik und soziale Gerechtigkeit. Wie die deutsche Bevölkerung Zielkonflikte in der Transformation wahrnimmt, Bertelsmann Stiftung (Hrsg.): Gütersloh. DOI:10.11586/2023094
[3] Levi, Sebastian, Wolf, Ingo und Sommer, Stephan (2023): Geographische und zeitliche Unterschiede in der Zustimmung zu Klimaschutzpolitik in Deutschland im Zeitverlauf, Kopernikus-Projekt Ariadne (Hrsg.): Potsdam. DOI: 10.48485/pik.2023.003
[4] Maaß, Fabian und Huang, Zhiyuan (2023): Sozialmonitoring Integrierte Stadtteilentwicklung – Bericht 2023, Freie und Hansestadt Hamburg (Hrsg.): Hamburg.
[5] Droste, Luigi und Wendt, Björn (2021): Who cares? Eine ländervergleichende Analyse klimawandelbezogener Besorgnis in Europa, Soziologie und Nachhaltigkeit, 7(1), 1-42.