Risk-benefit perceptions and public acceptance of Carbon Capture and Utilization

By Katrin Arning, J. Heek, André Sternberg, André Bardow, Martina Ziefle. Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, 2020

111 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Abstract Carbon Capture and Utilization (CCU) as low-carbon technology has the potential to reduce the use of fossil resources and CO2-emissions. Public protests against Carbon Capture and Storage showed that a successful rollout of low-carbon technologies requires social acceptance. The present study explores the relationship between risk and benefit perceptions and the perceived uncontrollability of the technology to predict the general and local acceptance of CCU, based on structural equation modeling. Perceived benefits (savings of fossil resources and CO2-emissions) were positively associated with affective benefit evaluations, which were the highest predictors of general CCU-acceptance. Risk perceptions were positively related to affective risk evaluations, which predicted local CCU-acceptance. Perceived uncontrollability was negatively related to CCU-perceptions and acceptance. The findings highlight the importance of understanding the interplay between perceived uncontrollability, risk and benefit perceptions, and resulting social acceptance of CCU. Implications to promote a socially acceptable deployment of low-carbon technologies were derived.

Subfields: Sociology and Political Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/a577051ac3523de528dc35a2722be09f5db74127