Generational Portrait of Spanish Society in the Face of Climate Change. A Question to Consider for the Green Economy under the Well-Being Approach

• Main Authors: María-José Foncubierta-Rodríguez, Rafael Ravina-Ripoll, José Antonio López-Sánchez
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2021-02-01
• Series: Energies
• Subjects: climate change; climate change awareness; EU; Green Deal; reduction of polluting energies; well-being economy
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/14/4/807

Climate change is emerging as an issue of progressive attention, and therefore awareness, in societies. In this work, the problem is addressed from a generational perspective in Spanish society and is carried out from the approaches of awareness, human action, and self-responsibility. All this from the search of the subjective well-being and the citizens’ happiness, as one of the bases of sustainable development initiatives. With data from the European Social Survey R8, from EUROSTAT, we work in two phases: (1) descriptive and inferential on possible associations of the items with the variable Age, and (2) calculation of probabilities between groups through logistic regression. The results confirm a general awareness, but with apparent statistical differences between age groups. In general, the youngest are the most aware, blame human activity most intensely, are the most concerned, and are the most willing to act. And it is the older people who are less aware of all these issues. Based on this finding, and from the approach mentioned above, it is recommended that leaders, both in the macroeconomic and microeconomic sectors, develop initiatives that sensitize and encourage older age groups.