Authors: Asimina Voskaki, Konstantinos Tsermenidis

Title: Public perception of climate change: investigation into Greek attitude and responses to climate change risks involved

Abstract

Although climatic change is considered one of the greatest challenges our world is facing, public perception and attitude do not always address it as the most important amongst other environmental issues or compared to socio-economic issues. The key issue of this paper is to investigate public perception in Greece regarding climate change. Based on the results of a questionnaire survey, the research looks into the factors that define actions to fight climate change and investigates the relationship between reaction and level of knowledge, awareness and degree of concern. In addition, it examines people’s willingness to change current lifestyle and adapt to a changing climate. The information derived from survey data concerns topics and perceived importance of the causes of climate change between certain groups of people. To this end, descriptive approaches and cluster analysis technique are applied to draw some general conclusions concerning sex, age, origin and level of knowledge, and to get an intuitive on how the subjects are grouped in certain profiles, according to their attitude towards climate change. Based on analysis results, this paper, amongst others, highlights factors that influence individual perception and points out drivers of behavior change that can facilitate efficient adaptation plans.