Climate skepticism and action: The Philippines Survey

This survey is part of the research project The Ecology of Individuals’ Disposition for Climate Change Populism, funded by the SCRIPTS Cluster of Excellence. The project aims to investigate how global, national, and individual-level factors shape climate change skepticism and action. Unlike many studies that focus solely on individual-level, socio-economic determinants of climate-change attitudes, this survey examines the interactions between micro and macro-level mediators of such attitudes. The survey was conducted in the Philippines from March to April 2024. Respondents were recruited through online access panels (double opt-in) established by RAKUTEN, an external survey contractor. Details about their recruitment methods and panels are provided in the attached documentation. The survey was administered by RAKUTEN using the CAWI (Computer-Assisted Web Interviewing) method. The target population consisted of adults (18+) holding Philippine citizenship. A quota sampling method, based on age, gender, and region of residence, was employed to ensure a representative sample. The final sample size was 1,500 respondents. The survey explores levels of skepticism about climate change in relation to 1) trend skepticism (doubts about whether climate change is happening or real), 2) attribution skepticism (doubts about the role of humans in driving climate change), 3) impact skepticism (doubts about the seriousness of climate change threat), 4) respondents’ reasoning for or against reducing emissions in their home country, and 5) their willingness to take action to reduce the effect of climate change. In addition to standard socio-demographic questions, respondents answered questions about trust in science and scientists, self-efficacy, personal freedoms, authoritarian personality traits, overconfidence, and individual exposure to global influences. The survey included both standard questions and survey experiments. Where available, we adapted suitable questions from other social surveys, the International Social Survey Program (ISSP) Environmental modules, the World Values Survey, the Eurobarometer, and the Public Attitudes Toward Liberal Script Survey (PALS). The science populism scale was taken from Mede, Schäfer, and Füchslin (2021). Mede, Niels G; Schäfer, Mike S; Füchslin, Tobias (2021). The SciPop Scale for measuring science-related populist attitudes in surveys: Development, test, and validation. International Journal of Public Opinion Research, 33(2):273-293. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/ijpor/edaa026