The effect of public safety power shut-offs on climate change attitudes and behavioural intentions

• Published in: Nature energy Vol. 7; no. 8; pp. 736 - 743
• Main Authors: Mildenberger, Matto, Howe, Peter D., Trachtman, Samuel, Stokes, Leah C., Lubell, Mark
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 01.08.2022; Nature Publishing Group
• Subjects: 4014/2808; 4014/4012; 704/106/694/682; 706/4066/4065; Adaptation; Blackouts; Climate adaptation; Climate change; Climate policy; Economics and Management; Electric vehicles; Energy; Energy Policy; Energy Storage; Energy Systems; Environmental policy; Fossil fuels; Outages; Public safety; Renewable and Green Energy; Wildfires; United States > US; California
• ISSN: 2058-7546; 2058-7546
• DOI: 10.1038/s41560-022-01071-0

As climate change accelerates, governments will be forced to adapt to its impacts. The public could respond by increasing mitigation behaviours and support for decarbonization, creating a virtuous cycle between adaptation and mitigation. Alternatively, adaptation could generate backlash, undermining mitigation behaviours. Here we examine the relationship between adaptation and mitigation in the power sector, using the case of California’s public safety power shut-offs in 2019. We use a geographically targeted survey to compare residents living within power outage zones to matched residents in similar neighbourhoods who retained their electricity. Outage exposure increased respondent intentions to purchase fossil fuel generators while it may have reduced intentions to purchase electric vehicles. However, exposure did not change climate policy preferences, including willingness to pay for either wildfire or climate-mitigating reforms. Respondents blamed outages on their utility, not local, state or federal governments. Our findings demonstrate that energy infrastructure disruptions, even when not understood as climate adaptations, can still be consequential for decarbonization trajectories. Climate change adaptation policies could influence public decarbonization behaviours positively or negatively, impacting further mitigation and adaptation efforts. This study examines public responses to planned power outages in California and finds that the outages shaped some energy behavioural intentions but did not alter climate or energy policy preferences.