• Energy Research

¿Existen diferencias de conocimiento acerca del cambio climático entre adolescentes mujeres yhombres? ¿Cómo perciben los adolescentes la crisis climática en función del género? Con el finde dar respuesta a estas preguntas se realizó un metaanálisis con una muestra de 84 artículosinternacionales seleccionados con la metodología de revisión bibliográfica sistematizada,para lo cual se identificaron aquellos en los que —de acuerdo con la variable de género—existían diferencias de conocimiento, percepciones y/o valoraciones entre los adolescentesque cursaban educación secundaria. Del total de artículos —que se concentró entre 1993 y2017— 26 de ellos (30,95%) abordaban las diferencias de género en relación con el cambioclimático. El metaanálisis reveló que las mujeres obtenían menores puntuaciones que loshombres respecto de los conocimientos en esta temática, con una diferencia aumentadaconforme se avanzaba en los respectivos cursos de educación secundaria, aunque atribuíanun mayor riesgo a la crisis climática, presentaban mayor preocupación por el problema y, adiferencia de los hombres que evidenciaban una cosmovisión más tecnicista, estas mostraron mayor disposición ecocéntrica para aceptar las medidas contra la crisis climática.

Universities have an unrivaled potential to educate students on climate change issues and to actively engage them in climate affairs, both as citizens and influencers of future professions. Despite this potential and the many advantages of university student engagement in climate change, less emphasis has been given to understanding their attitude and perceptions towards climate change, in a way that may guide changes in the curriculum and teaching practices. Based on the need to address the existing literature gap, this article assesses university students’ attitudes and perceptions toward climate change at the international level. This study comprises a survey of a sample of universities across the world and uses statistical analysis to identify the most important trends across geographical locations of the universities. The study revealed that university students are aware of climate change and associated risks. The university students believe that climate change education is a means to shape their attitude and equip them with relevant skills and knowledge so as to influent others. The awareness of university students is inextricably linked to their field of study and participation in various climate change events. Furthermore, the student’s knowledge of climate change risks varies across gender, age, and academic education. The study provides recommended universities to include climate change issues in their curricular and extracurricular programs so as to prepare future professionals to cope with the far reaching challenges of a climate change SI

Climate Change is the most important threat to our society and all species on Earth. Large alterations in the climate are affecting every aspect of our society and in order to limit this impact we must decarbonize the economy before 2050. Although science presents solid evidence on the magnitude of the problem and outlines precisely the consequences, people do not act accordingly and do not consider this issue a priority for their survival. The reason behind this paradox might be a non-appropriate Social Representation of Climate Change in society as the Social Representation conditions and forms the response of the society. In this paper, we extend previous investigations of how this Social Representation is formed in order to find ways to improve it through a Massive Online Open Course on the Science of Climate Change. Using a validated questionnaire, we investigated the knowledge dimension of the Social Representation of Climate Change in a group of students of a MOOC on Climate Change. A pre- and posttest revealed general improvements in all the categories that were considered in this study. A detailed analysis showed different degrees of improvement for different groups, providing new insights in the efficiency of knowledge-based online courses. Well designed Massive Online Open Courses, based on scientific evidence, targeted to the general public might improve the Social Representation of Climate Change, which may in turn trigger awareness and an effective mobilization to address this important and urgent topic.

This study is focused on perceptions regarding meat consumption, targeting university students. This is a timely topic in a context of climate change (CC), sustainability in agri-food systems and in universities. Recently, some universities adopted food-related CC mitigation measures, by removing some types of meat from their canteens. This research intended to find trends, at a Portuguese university, on consumption habits and on willingness to reduce meat. The methodology follows a quantitative and descriptive approach. The universe is the students’ community from the University of Aveiro, with a random sample of 876 valid questionnaires. Although results show that meat is a substantial part of students’ diet, most of them are willing to reduce this product, and mainly for environmental reasons. Undergraduate students have higher level of awareness in this matter, namely from Natural Sciences. Female students are more receptive to diet changes. Further studies and educational actions on Diet-CC should be promoted in all levels of Academy, especially in PhD, Social Sciences and with gender differentiation. Such results may support an effectively participatory discussion to better decide on decarbonization of the Campus through the diet.

Resumen La formación universitaria debería estar en la vanguardia de la necesaria transición hacia una sociedad descarbonizada, asumiendo los objetivos internacionalmente establecidos sobre mitigación y adaptación al cambio climático. Para realizar una primera aproximación del alcance de estos objetivos se presenta una investigación con estudiantes de diversas titulaciones de la Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, con el objetivo de explorar sus niveles de alfabetización climática y sus creencias y valoraciones personales sobre el cambio climático. El diseño metodológico es de tipo cuantitativo y descriptivo. Se realizó un muestreo no probabilístico e intencional con 488 estudiantes utilizando un cuestionario de respuesta cerrada integrado por 45 ítems. Se empleó el software SPSS para realizar los análisis estadísticos descriptivos y los análisis de varianza (ANOVA). Los resultados no permiten establecer una relación entre nivel de conocimientos sobre el problema y los elementos analizados sobre la percepción del cambio climático: creencia en la ocurrencia del cambio climático, percepción de responsabilidad y percepción de riesgo, y la creencia en el consenso científico sobre su origen antropogénico. Este estudio ofrece una imagen general sobre la representación social del cambio climático en este público diana concreto y sería recomendable ampliar los datos con nuevos estudios de corte cualitativo para profundizar en los resultados.

Since January 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic has dominated the media and exercises pressure on governments worldwide. Apart from its effects on economies, education systems and societies, the pandemic has also influenced climate change research. This paper examines the extent to which COVID-19 has influenced climate change research worldwide during the first wave at the beginning of 2020 and how it is perceived to exploit it in the future. This study utilised an international survey involving those dedicated to climate change science and management research from Academia, Government, NGOs, and international agencies in 83 countries. The analysis of responses encompasses four independent variables: Institutions, Regions, Scientific Areas, and the level of economic development represented by the Human Development Index (HDI). Results show that: (1) COVID-19 modified the way the surveyed researchers work, (2) there are indicators that COVID-19 has already influenced the direction of climate change and adaptation policy implementation, and (3) respondents perceived (explicitly concerning the COVID-19 lockdowns of March-April 2020), that the pandemic has drawn attention away from climate policy. COVID- 19 has influenced the agenda of climate change research for more than half of the respondents and is likely to continue in the future, suggesting that the impacts on their research will still be felt for many years. The paper concludes by outlining critical implications for policy-making.