Beyond climate, culture and comfort in European preferences for low-carbon heat

Sovacool, Benjamin K., Demski, Christina ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9215-452X and Noel, Lance 2021. Beyond climate, culture and comfort in European preferences for low-carbon heat. Global Environmental Change 66 , 102200. 10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2020.102200

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Abstract

It is imperative that climate, energy, and sustainability policy researchers and practitioners grapple with the difficulty of decarbonizing heat, which remains the largest single end-use energy service worldwide. In this study, based on a comparative assessment of five original and representative national surveys in Germany, Italy, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom (N = 10,109), we explore public attitudes of household heat decarbonization in Europe. We explore how people conceive of the purposes of low-carbon heat, their preferences for particular forms of heat supply, and their (at times odd) practices of heat consumption and temperature settings. The data reveal four significant challenges to heat decarbonization that are consistent across geographies: 1) High satisfaction with existing, often fossil fuel based, heating systems; 2) Varying and divergent preferences and expectations for thermal comfort; 3) Householders unlikely to change their heating system in the near-term, in part driven by low familiarity and knowledge of alternative systems; and 4) heat satisfaction appears lower as the fuel mix is decarbonized. The paper concludes by connecting these findings with policy and research implications.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Psychology
Publisher:	Elsevier
ISSN:	0959-3780
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	2 November 2020
Date of Acceptance:	1 November 2020
Last Modified:	04 May 2023 05:09
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/136098

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