What does the public want to know about climate change and what difference does it make?

This paper describes a 2 year research study looking at the understanding and attitudes of the general public to climate change and the links made between travel behaviour and climate change. 141 participants took part in five deliberative group discussion meetings, completed four one-week travel diaries and completed two psychographic questionnaires. Whilst awareness and acceptance of climate change was very high only around half of the participants thought that their actions could make a difference. Over the course of the study there was a significant reduction in the number of trips made by all participants. However, there was no overall reduction in carbon use with some people reducing and others increasing their consumption. Attitudinal, rather than traditional socio-demographic measures, seem key to understanding who is likely to respond to climate change related behaviour messages and how.