Beyond environmentalists: The effect of ‘unconventional advocates’ on public support for climate policy

Presenter
Dr Jamin Xiongzhi Wang is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the ANU Crawford School of Public Policy, working on the role of unconventional advocates in public support for climate policy in Australia. Jamin is interested in how to promote broad-based public support and actions on climate change and nature conservation more broadly, with a focus during PhD on ‘psychological ownership of nature’ (i.e., the feeling that the nature space/element is mine or ours) to encourage pro-environmental outcomes among different segments of the population. Jamin has general research interests in environmental social psychology, climate policy, and climate change communication, and is keen to create positive changes for the natural environment and society.

Abstract
How to promote broad-based public support for climate policy, especially among holdout constituencies who are typically expected to exhibit lower levels of support for climate action? In this talk, I will present our latest work on ‘unconventional advocates’ as promising climate messengers and their relationship to the Australian mainstream climate movement. Unconventional advocates are those who advocate for climate action but from a social identity position that is either typically not associated with climate action (e.g., Doctors for the Environment Australia) or have a history of conflict with environmental causes and/or environmentalists (e.g., Investor Group on Climate Change). These advocates are ‘unconventional’ because they disrupt stereotyped expectations of who advocates for climate action. Specifically, I will present 1) the theoretical basis of unconventional advocates, 2) social network analyses mapping their connections to over 3,000 climate advocacy groups in Australia, 3) a mixed-method analysis regarding the quantity and characteristics (i.e., linguistic cues) of media coverage on them and other types of climate advocacy groups in 17,380 Australian media articles, and 4) public intercept interviews (N = 90) on everyday Australians’ (city-based, coastal regional, and inland regional) views and stereotypes of unconventional climate advocacy groups. Important implications will be discussed regarding how we shall approach climate communication to a broad and diverse audience.

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