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Evaluating gaps in knowledge, willingness and heating performance in individual preferences on household energy and climate policy: evidence from the UK

Published version
Peer-reviewed

Type

Article

Change log

Authors

Khanam, T 
Reiner, DM 

Abstract

This study investigates the knowledge-willingness, willingness-performance, and knowledge-performance gaps regarding reducing carbon dioxide emissions and emerging technologies of the 2137 British residents. Household's heating sources and heat settings are anticipated as key criteria for evaluating respondents' performances. The study revealed more than 80% of respondents have a good knowledge regarding climate change and carbon issues. The study found a smaller gap in knowledge versus willingness as 59%, 87%, 88% and 85% of respondents want to use bioenergy, afforestation/reforestation, solar and wind for their future energy sources. The Multinomial logit regression (MNLR) investigates that incrementing good and very good knowledge index increases the odds of a high willingness to save energy by 33% and 6%, respectively. The willingness versus performance study identified 96% as claiming to be more likely energy savers, whereas, in reality, 52% of them never or rarely took basic measures like setting their heating system to turn off. Despite having a good and very good knowledge index, the knowledge versus performance appears, 75% of respondents are using gas boilers and gas central heating. Policymakers and the research community need to develop comprehensive plans by taking these wider social issues to meet net-zero targets. Employing smart building principles, lowering the installation costs of the new smart technologies, awarding and encouraging the energy saver, setting individual carbon footprint limits, and training and empowering household representatives to select better energy for houses could popularise the emission reduction technologies in the UK.

Description

Keywords

Carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology, bioenergy CCS, gas CCS, Climate change, Solar energy, Wind energy, Knowledge index, Willingness

Journal Title

Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

1364-0321
1879-0690

Volume Title

160

Publisher

Elsevier
Sponsorship
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EP/P026214/1)
Fortumin Foundation provided financial support as a grant to TK to visit Cambridge and carry out the research. The grant number was 201800255. The YouGov survey was supported by the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) grant EP/P02614/1