Survey of Awareness and Willingness to Pay for Responding Climate Change among Community Residents in Lhasa, Tibet, China

Objective To investigate the awareness and the willingness to pay for responding climate change among the community residents in Lhasa, Tibet, China.

Methods A face-to-face survey was conducted among 1 420 residents from two communities with a population over 20 000 in Lhasa. The chi-square test and multivariate logistic regression were employed to analyze the awareness of climate change, willingness to pay, and their influencing factors in different groups of people.

Results A total of 1 372 (96.6%) valid questionnaires were returned. The awareness rate of climate change among the community residents was 43.1%. The scores of knowledge, attitude, and practice were (5.22±1.52), (2.87±0.51), and (1.62±0.61), respectively, with a mean total score of (9.71±1.94). Age, education level, family income, and health status were the main factors affecting residents' awareness of climate change. Among the community residents, 59.4% were willing to pay for improving the public infrastructure to respond climate change, and 40.6% were unwilling to pay. The residents with older age, lower education level, lower family income, and lower level of awareness of climate change had less willingness to pay for responding climate change.

Conclusion The community residents in Lhasa have moderate levels of awareness and willingness to pay for responding climate change. The research findings can provide references for the screening of vulnerable population to climate change and developing of accurate intervention measures.