Editing IPCC:AR6/SROCC/Chapter-4 (section)

===== 4.3.2.4.4 Risk perception =====

Risk perception, which is context-specific and varies from one individual to another, may influence communities’ exposure and vulnerability as it shapes authorities’ and people’s attitudes towards sudden and slow onset hazards, as shown by Terpstra (2011) <sup>[[#fn:r1134|1134]]</sup> , Lazrus (2015), Elrick-Barr et al. (2017) <sup>[[#fn:r1135|1135]]</sup> and O’Neill et al. (2016) in the Netherlands, Tuvalu, Australia and Ireland, respectively. The progressive discounting of coastal hazard risks and subsequent loss of risk memory also played a role in coastal disasters such as Hurricane Katrina in 2005 in the USA (Burby, 2006 <sup>[[#fn:r1136|1136]]</sup> ; Kates et al., 2006 <sup>[[#fn:r1137|1137]]</sup> ) and Storm Xynthia in 2010 in France (Vinet et al., 2012 <sup>[[#fn:r1138|1138]]</sup> ; Genovese and Przyluski, 2013 <sup>[[#fn:r1139|1139]]</sup> ; Chadenas et al., 2014 <sup>[[#fn:r1140|1140]]</sup> ).

Risk perceptions stem from intertwined predictors such as ‘gender, political party identification, cause-knowledge, impact-knowledge, response-knowledge, holistic affect, personal experience with extreme weather events, [social norms] and biospheric value orientations’ (Kellens et al., 2011 <sup>[[#fn:r1141|1141]]</sup> ; Carlton and Jacobson, 2013 <sup>[[#fn:r1142|1142]]</sup> ; Lujala et al., 2015 <sup>[[#fn:r1143|1143]]</sup> ; van der Linden, 2015, p. 112; Weber, 2016 <sup>[[#fn:r1144|1144]]</sup> ; Elrick-Barr et al., 2017 <sup>[[#fn:r1145|1145]]</sup> ; Goeldner-Gianella et al., 2019 <sup>[[#fn:r1146|1146]]</sup> ). In general, there is a lack of education, training and thus knowledge and literacy on recent and projected trends in sea level, which compromises ownership of science facts and projections at all levels, from individuals and institutions to society at large.

While some studies have begun to highlight the influence of the distance from the sea on risk perceptions (Milfont et al., 2014 <sup>[[#fn:r1147|1147]]</sup> ; Lujala et al., 2015 <sup>[[#fn:r1148|1148]]</sup> ; O’Neill et al., 2016), there is still little knowledge about how risk perceptions vary across different geographical and social contexts, and how this influences exposure and vulnerability to coastal hazards (e.g., Terpstra, 2011; van der Linden, 2015 <sup>[[#fn:r1149|1149]]</sup> ). There is a critical lack of studies specifically addressing SLR. Some recent works conducted in coastal Australia suggest that while people are confident about their ability to cope with an already experienced event, when it comes to SLR, the dominant narrative is articulated around the barriers related to the ‘uncertainty in the nature and scale of the impacts as well as the response options available’ (Elrick-Barr et al., 2017, p. 1147). Similar conclusions have been highlighted in the Caribbean islands of St. Vincent (Smith, 2018 <sup>[[#fn:r1150|1150]]</sup> ) and the Bahamas (Thomas and Benjamin, 2018 <sup>[[#fn:r1151|1151]]</sup> ). SLR is rarely addressed separately from sea-related extreme events, which masks a crucial difference between already-observed and delayed impacts. Climate change is considered a “distant psychological risk” (Spence et al., 2012 <sup>[[#fn:r1152|1152]]</sup> ), making it and SLR per se ‘markedly different from the way that our ancestors have traditionally perceived threats in their local environment’ (Milfont et al., 2014 <sup>[[#fn:r1153|1153]]</sup> ; Lujala et al., 2015 <sup>[[#fn:r1154|1154]]</sup> ; van der Linden, 2015, p. 112; O’Neill et al., 2016).

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