title: Concern and Helplessness: Citizens' Assessments of Individual and Collective Action on the Provision of Environmental Public Goods in a Coastal City at Risk of Inundation.
abstract: Survey data from a representative sample of 1005 households in the UK coastal city of Portsmouth are examined to discern commonalities and contrasts in their assessment of actions to address the related environmental threats of climate change and flooding. The city of Portsmouth is at risk of inundation from rising sea levels and the city has recent experience of flooding. A simple local and global public good framework is used to organize the understanding of reported attitudes and their determinants. The findings show that it is not always the same individuals who express concern about both climate change and flooding. Investigation into perceptions of helplessness in tackling climate change indicates that individuals more often perceived themselves to be helpless in tackling climate but perceived local collective action to be more effective. Individuals considered local collective action to be more effective in tackling climate change. Perceptions of individual helplessness are in turn related to reported concern. Several socioeconomic characteristics of individuals are shown to be useful in explaining the determinants of concern and perceptions of helplessness among respondents. As other cities face climate change-related challenges, the empirical findings, based upon attitudes from an alert urban population, are informative to policy design.
authors.affiliation: Department of Accounting, Finance and Economics, Ulster University, Jordanstown Campus, Shore Road, Newtownabbey, Co. Antrim, BT37 0QB, UK. s.bunyan@ulster.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Sabrina
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Bunyan
authors.affiliation: Economics and Finance, Portsmouth Business School, University of Portsmouth, Richmond Building, Portland Street, Portsmouth, PO1 3DE, UK.
authors.forename: Alan
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Collins
authors.affiliation: Department of Accounting, Finance and Economics, Ulster University, Jordanstown Campus, Shore Road, Newtownabbey, Co. Antrim, BT37 0QB, UK.
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Duffy
mesh_terms: D001290:Attitude; D002947:Cities; D057231:Climate Change; D004189:Disaster Planning / Q000458:organization & administration*; D004190:Disasters / Q000517:prevention & control*; D055868:Floods; D006801:Humans; D010465:Perception; D011640:Public Policy; D006113:United Kingdom
keywords: Climate change; Coastal city; Flood prevention; Global public goods; Local public goods