The many faces of climate change: A focus group study of the meanings ascribed to climate change in the Netherlands

Climate change is a hotly debated topic, and climate attitudes have been widely studied. Whereas prior research has primarily focused on levels of concern and belief in climate change, we explore the meanings of climate change underlying these concerns and beliefs among different groups. We do this by conducting in-depth focus group interviews (N=47, sampling ongoing) to inductively explore the meanings that heterogeneous groups of citizens ascribe to climate change in the context of the Netherlands. We explore these different meanings using a newly designed method for elicitation and conversation facilitation. This novel method is designed to support participants in verbalizing and explaining the meaning they ascribe to ambiguous themes such as climate change, while avoiding influencing or steering participant responses. We identify four distinct perspectives on climate change: the scientific perspective, the spiritual perspective, the order perspective, and the divided society perspective. These perspectives diverge in citizens’ core understandings of climate change, and how they use these understandings to evaluate different aspects of climate change and related policies. Our findings help reconfigure dominant approaches in prior research and policy by helping understand how identical responses to climate change among citizens may mask substantial diversity in what climate change means to them, opening up innovative ways in addressing climate change while recognizing different perspectives.