How can communication contribute to reducing greenhouse gas emissions through behaviour change and policy support? The existing literature emphasises informing people about the scientific consensus on climate change, but the underlying research has been conducted mainly in the US, where prior beliefs in human-made climate change are lower than in many other countries with the highest per-capita emissions. We test consensus messages in an ‘extended gateway belief model’ using a pre-registered survey experiment on a representative quota sample of the German population (N = 1171). Our data show that consensus messages are likely to have no or only minimal effects on perceived scientific agreement, intended behaviour change and policy support. Still, in line with prior research, we find that perceived scientific agreement, belief in climate science, efficacy beliefs, and worry about climate change predict policy support and intended behaviour change. These results demonstrate that effective communication needs tailoring to its local context.

沟通如何通过行为改变和政策支持来减少温室气体排放？现有文献强调告知人们有关气候变化的科学共识，但基础研究主要在美国进行，美国对人为气候变化的先验信念低于许多其他人均排放量最高的国家。我们使用对德国人口的代表性配额样本（N = 1171）。我们的数据表明，共识信息可能对感知的科学一致性、预期的行为改变和政策支持没有影响或只有很小的影响。尽管如此，与之前的研究一致，我们发现感知到的科学一致性、对气候科学的信念、功效信念和对气候变化的担忧可以预测政策支持和预期的行为变化。这些结果表明，有效的沟通需要根据当地情况进行调整。