We scrutinise the controversial carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology from a cross-cultural perspective. The reaction of the public to CCS will considerably affect the development of the technology. Previous research has identified general and local mechanisms in how the general public reacts to CCS. Researchers have noticed that differences exist between countries, but the effects of cross-cultural differences have not been explored in detail. We argue that it is crucial to understand how public perceptions of the technology emerge and form in their individual contexts or embedded in large-scale cultural frameworks.

Public reaction to CCS is structured in two dimensions—risk perception and benefit perception—and we design a model with individual and national cultural level predictors. We indicate that effects of individual level variables such as familiarity with technology, or sociodemographic variables such as education, are important but their effects are likely mediated and confounded by the cultural setting people operate in. The results show that, in parallel with other factors such as trust, risk perception is affected by cultural dimensions such as uncertainty avoidance and the society’s short-term or long-term orientation.

We provide a framework to understand why and how societies challenge the technology.

我们从跨文化的角度审查有争议的碳捕集与封存（CCS）技术。公众对CCS的反应将极大地影响该技术的发展。先前的研究已经确定了公众如何对CCS做出反应的一般机制和地方机制。研究人员注意到，国家之间存在差异，但是尚未详细探讨跨文化差异的影响。我们认为，至关重要的是要了解公众对技术的看法是如何在其各自的上下文中出现或形成的，或如何嵌入到大规模文化框架中的。

公众对CCS的反应分为两个维度：风险感知和利益感知，我们设计了一个具有个人和国家文化水平预测因素的模型。我们指出，个人水平变量（例如对技术的熟悉程度）或社会人口统计学变量（例如教育）的影响很重要，但它们的影响很可能是由人们所从事的文化环境介导和混淆的。结果表明，与其他因素一起，例如作为信任，风险感知会受到文化因素的影响，例如避免不确定性以及社会的短期或长期取向。

我们提供了一个框架，以了解社会为什么以及如何挑战技术。