Green Societies: Social Responsiveness to Climate Change

What makes a country more or less likely to take action to reduce its impact on the environment? This is the focus of a recent report completed by the Economic Intelligence Unit (EIU) entitled Green Societies: A Benchmark of Social Responsiveness to Climate Change. Commissioned by the British Council, the report assesses the impact of factors that underpin the social, cultural and political willingness of countries to react to climate change and mitigate its effects.

 

The EIU developed a benchmark that ranked 26 countries across a range of indicators that fall into five categories; Openness to climate change dialogue; Lifestyle & climate change; Education, awareness and participation; Openness of green economy; and Obstacles to climate change action. In addition to the benchmark, the EIU constructed a separate set of three indices using hard data to measure countries' per-capita impact on the environment, their deployment of incentives and targets relating to climate change, and the vulnerability to its effects. These indices allow for interesting comparisons to be made between the impacts a country makes on the environment and how willing it is to engage such issues.

 

Soon to be published, the findings of the report will provide insight into what conditions are necessary for a country to think about tackling environmental issues. Gaining a better understanding of how these factors interact will be invaluable for policymakers as they develop strategies to adapt to and combat climate change.