Scientists and the media are increasingly using the terms ‘climate emergency’ or ‘climate crisis’ to urge timely responses from the public and private sectors to combat the irreversible consequences of climate change. However, whether the latest trend in climate change labelling can result in stronger climate change risk perceptions in the public is unclear. Here we used survey data collected from 1,892 individuals across Taiwan in 2019 to compare the public’s reaction to a series of questions regarding climate change beliefs, communication, and behavioural intentions under two labels: ‘climate change’ and ‘climate crisis.’ The respondents had very similar responses to the questions using the two labels. However, we observed labelling effects for specific subgroups, with some questions using the climate crisis label actually leading to backlash effects compared with the response when using the climate change label. Our results suggest that even though the two labels provoke similar reactions from the general public, on a subgroup level, some backlash effects may become apparent. For this reason, the label ‘climate crisis’ should be strategically chosen.

In recent years, the subject of Indigenous peoples and global climate change adaptation has become a rapidly growing area of international study. Despite this trend, Taiwan, home to many Indigenous communities, has received relatively little attention. To date, no comprehensive review of the literature on Taiwan’s Indigenous peoples and global climate change has been conducted. Therefore, this article presents a bibliometric analysis and literature review of both domestic and international studies on Taiwan’s Indigenous peoples in relation to resilience, climate change, and climate shocks in the 10-year period after Typhoon Morakot (2009). We identified 111 domestic and international peer-reviewed articles and analyzed their presentation of the current state of knowledge, geographical and temporal characteristics, and Indigenous representation. Most studies were discovered to focus on post-disaster recovery, particularly within the context of Typhoon Morakot, as well as Indigenous cultures, ecological wisdom, and community development. This study also discovered relatively few studies investigating how traditional ecological knowledge systems can be integrated into climate change adaptation. Most studies also adopted a somewhat narrow focus on Indigenous resilience. Large-scale quantitative and longitudinal studies are found to be in their infancy. We observed a geographical skewness among the studies in favor of southern Taiwan and relatively limited engagement with contemporary studies on Indigenous peoples and climate change. We furthermore determined a large overlap between the destruction path of Morakot and study sites in the articles. Indigenous scholars have managed to find a voice among domestic and international outlets, and an increasing number of scholars have argued for more culturally sensitive approaches to post-disaster recovery and disaster management in Taiwan.

Mitigating climate change requires collective action of various sectors and on multiple scales, including individual behavioural changes among citizens. Although numerous studies have examined factors that influence individuals’ mitigation behaviours, much less attention has been given to interpersonal influence. Children have been suggested to influence parents’ climate change concerns; however, how the interactions between couples—typically the primary decision-makers in married-couple households—influence each other’s climate change concerns has seldom been discussed. In this study, we surveyed married heterosexual couples to investigate the interdependency of husbands’ and wives’ motivations for behavioural change to mitigate climate change. We found that wives’ psychological constructs, including climate change risk perception, self-efficacy, and gender role attitudes, demonstrated stronger effects on their husbands’ motivation than did husbands’ own constructs on their own motivation, whereas husbands’ psychological constructs did not influence their wives’ motivation. Our results suggest the importance of wives’ role in motivating household climate change mitigation behaviours.

This study compares husbands' and wives' views on the person in a couple who should be responsible for preparing for hurricane hazards; it also examines whether the varying levels of agreement reached by husbands and wives regarding this responsibility are associated with actual preparedness behaviors. An online survey targeting married, heterosexual couples living in Sarasota County, Florida, USA was sent out between March and May, 2015. Both the husbands and the wives were asked to fill out the survey. A total of 170 surveys were used for analysis. Results suggested that husbands and wives felt that they had shared responsibility for most of the 19 preparedness behaviors considered. However, a few stereotypically masculine preparedness behaviors were found to typically fall to husbands. Husbands' and wives' views of perceived responsibility were not statistically different, but husbands tended to favor individual responsibility, while wives tended to favor joint responsibility. Higher levels of agreement were significantly associated with greater engagement in planning-related preparedness behaviors. Policy implications are discussed.

Many Indigenous peoples are disproportionately affected by global climate change. Current research is focused on how Indigenous adaptation and mitigation strategies can be integrated into mainstream climate change adaptation and mitigation strategies. Through a mixed-methods approach, this study explored the effects of culture and local perceptions on coping strategies and adaptations to climate change among Indigenous communities, of which knowledge is inadequate, with a specific focus on two Indigenous Tayal communities in northern Taiwan (N = 101). From our findings, we developed a typology based on a polychoric factor analysis, which includes four key aspects: commercialized response; experience and anticipation; culture, preparedness and recovery; and external support and institutions. The typology shows that cultural practices and perceptions profoundly shape how Indigenous households respond to climate-related disasters and should therefore be incorporated more comprehensively into climate change adaptation and mitigation policy. Our findings reflect a nuanced understanding of Indigenous peoples’ complicated relationship with global climate change. The proposed typology could be used as a theoretical and/or policy-oriented framework to advance an agenda for strengthening Indigenous livelihood resilience to global climate change.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine the relationships between gender ideologies and the motivation to mitigate climate change among a sample (N = 663) representative of the Taiwanese population, taking into account the different aspects of gender ideology measures and the multidimensionality of gender ideologies. Design/methodology/approach: A landline-based telephone survey in Taiwan was used to collect research data. Pearson correlations were used to determine the associations between gender ideologies and motivation to mitigate climate change, and multiple regression analysis was performed to determine whether gender ideology measures were predictors for motivation to mitigate climate change. Findings: The results suggested that the relationships between gender ideologies and mitigation motivation are complex, and that both traditional and egalitarian views of gender ideologies, measured using different scales, are positively associated with motivation. The dynamics of relationships among subgroups divided by gender and marital status need to be considered, as the relationships between gender ideologies and motivation are salient for unmarried individuals as well as married females. Research limitations/implications: The findings support the premise that gender ideologies play an essential and complex role in individual climate change mitigation behaviors. Originality/value: This is the first study that systematically examined the relationships between gender ideologies and motivation to mitigate climate change.