The experience of environmental stress and attitudes towards climate change was explored for 1226 students at the University of the South Pacific, the foremost tertiary institution serving the independent nations of the Pacific. Students sourced information regarding climate change from media including television, radio, and newspapers; the community (typically via their village, church, and extended family); the University and their friends; and in addition to regional agencies such as the Pacific Community. Most students concluded that they could not believe all of the informations provided by these sources. The findings demonstrate that most students-the future elite of the region-rank global environmental change as the highest future risk. Although nearly all respondents believed that climate change was happening, more than half of respondents believed that the risk was exaggerated and only one-third believed that science would find an answer, suggesting a lack of trust in scientific sources of information. Results also showed that these attitudes varied across demographic factors such as age, region, and gender. The understanding of contemporary attitudes towards global environmental change among a cohort that is likely to include future national leaders in the Pacific Islands region presents unique opportunities for long-range planning of intervention and support strategies. Of particular note for effective intervention and support is the breadth and trustworthiness of various information sources including Pacific Island leaders.

In this study we employed the Extended Parallel Process Model of risk communication to investigate the effectiveness of combining threat and efficacy messages to increase public engagement with climate change. A total of 515 Mandarin-speaking residents of Beijing, China were randomly assigned to view one of two climate change messages sourced from an online environmental website. The first message (high threat - low efficacy) described the negative impacts of climate change for China, but provided no information about what actions could be taken by citizens to reduce the threat. The second message (high threat - high efficacy) provided the same threat information, but also provided practical information on how to reduce the threat. Mediation analyses revealed that the high threat - high efficacy message elicited higher levels of perceived efficacy in viewers, which in turn predicted higher levels of danger control processing (intention to seek our more information and take action) and lower levels of fear control processing (message rejection and denial of threat). Moderation analyses revealed that the high efficacy messages were less effective for viewers with moderate to strong anthropocentric worldviews and very high ecocentric worldviews.

A sample of 1226 students at the University of the South Pacific, the premier tertiary institution in the Pacific Islands, answered a range of questions intended to understand future island decision-makers' attitudes towards Nature and concern about climate change. Questions asking about church attendance show that the vast majority of participants have spiritual values that explain their feelings of connectedness to Nature which in turn may account for high levels of pessimism about the current state of the global/Pacific environment. Concern about climate change as a future livelihood stressor in the Pacific region is ubiquitous at both societal and personal levels. While participants exhibited a degree of understanding matching objective rankings about the vulnerability of their home islands/countries, a spatial optimism bias was evident in which 'other places' were invariably regarded as 'worse'. Through their views on climate change concern, respondents also favoured a psychological distancing of environmental risk in which 'other places' were perceived as more exposed than familiar ones. Influence from spirituality is implicated in both findings. Most interventions intended to reduce exposure to environmental risk and to enable effective and sustainable adaptation to climate change in the Pacific Islands region have failed to acknowledge influences on decisionmaking of spirituality and connectedness to Nature. Messages that stress environmental conservation and stewardship, particularly if communicated within familiar and respected religious contexts, are likely to be more successful than secular ones.

Australians vary considerably in their beliefs and responses to climate change, and addressing this diversity is an important challenge faced by climate change communicators. This study used audience segmentation analysis to identify the main climate change interpretive communities within Australia. A nationwide sample consisting of 3096 residents (aged 15-108 years, 47% male and 53% female) completed an online survey assessing a broad range of cognitive, affective, and behavioural constructs related to climate change. Latent profile analysis applied to the psychological variables suggested that this Australian sample consists of five distinct interpretive communities: 'Alarmed' (26%), 'Concerned' (39%), 'Uncertain' (14%), 'Doubtful' (12%), and 'Dismissive' (9%). Validation analyses revealed that these groups differed in their: (1) behavioural responses to climate change, (2) consumption of climate change related media, and (3) preferences for energy policies. Recommendations are presented for developing more effective climate change communications by tailoring and targeting communications to specific interpretive communities.

People vary considerably in terms of their knowledge, beliefs, and concern about climate change. Thus, an important challenge for climate change communicators is how to most effectively engage different types of audiences. This study aimed to identify distinct audience segments that vary in terms of their values, beliefs, and responses to climate change and determine for each segment which specific message attributes increased motivation to engage in climate adaptation. A sample of 1031 Australian residents (aged 18-66 years) completed an online survey assessing their values, beliefs, and behaviors related to climate change, and recording their responses to a broad range of climate change adaptation messages. Latent profile analysis identified three distinct audience segments: alarmed (34.4%), uncommitted (45.2%), and dismissive (20.3%). Sixty climate change adaptation messages were coded in terms of the presence/absence of six attributes: explicit reference to climate change, providing specific adaptation advice, strong negative emotive content, emphasis on collective responsibility, highlighting local impacts, and underscoring financial impacts. Participants viewed a random sample of six messages and rated the extent to which each message motivated them to seek out more information and immediately respond to the climate change threat portrayed in the message. Multilevel modeling indicated messages that included strong negative emotive content or provided specific adaptation advice increased adaptation intentions in all three audience segments. Omitting any mention of climate change and emphasizing local impacts increased adaptation intentions in dismissive audiences. Implications for tailoring and targeting climate change adaptation messages are discussed.

This research aimed to provide practical information about how to design communications on climate change adaptation and target these to the Australian population. This was achieved by: (1) identifying and increasing awareness of different climate change audiences in Australia, and (2) evaluating how each audience responds to different types of climate change messages. ... Providing specific adaptation advice in messages was found to be effective for all communities. The results largely support the Extended Parallel Processing Model of risk communication (Witte, 1992), and suggest that message attributes should be adjusted to effectively communicate with different climate change interpretive communities within Australia.