Are Citizens Ready for Active Climate Engagement or Stuck in a Game of Blame? Local Perceptions of Climate Action and Citizen Participation in Chilean Patagonia

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Some reference sources have not been found in some cases:

P. 2 line 61

p.4 line 153

p. 15, line 403-404

And line 419

p. 9 from line 283 to 286: there is some uncertainty in the use of capital letters, and the sentence is not really clear:  :

"We consider sex, age group, and years living in 283 Punta Arenas as independent variables. Exceptionally, we used the variable What duties related to the environment should the State of Chile assume? as an independent variable when crossed with What duties related to the environment should the citizenship assume? given the interesting results that this association yields." 

To be clearer,  quotation marks might be added (ex: we used the variable “What duties related to the environment should the State of Chile assume?”)

Idem p. 9,  line 303: “by age” 

Idem p. 14, line 380: by years 

The article is very clear, with good arguments and  a methodical research.

It is of great interest in the field of climate change studies and decision making.

The aim of the article of "exploring to what extent these structural transformations are also associated with cognitive and relational changes, thus reflecting a new understanding of both the environment and community participation in Chilean society", as is asserted at the beginning, is perfectly achieved. 

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

This paper explores to what extent these structural transformations are also associated with cognitive and relational changes. Although these experimental results are interesting, the paper could have been more interesting and better organised.

1.     The "Abstract" can be made much more impressive by highlighting your contributions and findings!

2.     The “Introduction” cites many references, but it does not provide a sufficiently exhaustive and synthetic overview and critical discussion of the state of the art of the related literature.

3.     In section 2, these research methods and content of this paper can be richer and more profound, and it is suggested to be improved.

4.     The authors should have helped the reader to understand the novelty issues of the developed scheme. These features should have been analysed in “Results”

5.     The following references can be cited in the discussion about carbon emission and air pollution, or decision method！

[1] A novel method for carbon emission forecasting based on Gompertz's law and fractional grey model: Evidence from American industrial sector. Renewable Energy, 181,803-819.

[2] COVID-19 lockdowns and air quality: Evidence from grey spatiotemporal forecasts. Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, 101228.  doi:10.1016/j.seps.2022.101228.

[3] Optimal contract design in sustainable supply chain: Interactive impacts of fairness concern and overconfidence, Journal of the Operational Research Society, 2021, 72(7), 1505-1524.

6.     Section 5 does not suggest effective open problems and future issues that could require further investigations. 

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

The paper "Are citizens ready for active climate engagement or stuck in a game of blame? Local perceptions of climate action and citizen participation in Chilean Patagonia" reports on the findings of a large survey about cliamte change and attitudes and perceptions of responsibility for action among citizens in Patagonia. The study reveals interesting findings about perceptions of the impacts of cliamte change and the need for action, and the gap between perceptions of responsibility and participation, particularly in the context of the constitutional developments in Chile.

The paper is well-written, structured logically and clearly lays out the results and discussion. It is well-suited to publication in Sustainability and, although it is focused on a case study, has wider implications for research into transformations. My only comments are about the description of the methods, which I think could be clearer and some minor comments on presentation. Overall, though, I think this is an excellent and interesting paper.

Comments

The methods need a little more detail to help the reader follow exactly what was done.

1. Line 246 - three main issues are identified, but it is not clear if these were identified in the focus groups or if these were taken into to the focus groups, which then led to the RQs and three key dimensions that guided the questionnaire. I suggest this be made clearer.

2. The logic of the creation of the questions is clear but it was not clear if the possible answers were pre-determined, i.e. it was a multiple choice survey or if there were free text answers with some categorisation. I think from the results it was the former - and in which case I assume the focus groups influenced the choice of possible answers. This is important for surveys of this type as we are always limiting the possible responses and it is important to acknowledge that.

3. Line 237: the meaning of the phrase "As a result, the sample was obtained with a +/- 2.18% margin of error and a 95% confidence interval" is not clear to me. Margin of error for what. I think it might be about how well the survey sample demographics match the region (city) demographics? I think this just needs some clarification.

4. I suggest justifying the choice of statistical tests (X2 and Cramer's V). I am not a statistician, but I always have the voice of my stats colleagues in my head telling me that the choice should be explained! I leave this to the authors' discretion.

My only other comment is about one of the findings, and I mention it only for reflection, the authors need not make a change:

p.347: you state that "paradoxically only 18% know instruments or institutions related to the environment". I was not sure that was paradoxical - any instruments and institutions are 'opaque' or highly specialised. Many instruments are highly specific and you would only know about them if you were in government or industry, e.g. carbon credits or other emission reductions schemes, or specific pollution regulations. I do not think there is a paradox in demanding compliance while not knowing the details of the instruments - it assumes a level of trust in the bureaucracy/government perhaps. As I say, the authors may disagree (or I may have misunderstood their point) but I raise it as a point to consider. It does not affect the wider point made here or the larger argument.

Again, I think this is a really good paper and a very interesting study. I look forward to other results from the project.    

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

The following references can be cited in the discussion about decision theory.

[1] Multi-attribute group decision making method with dual comprehensive  clouds under information environment of dual uncertain Z-numbers. Information Sciences, 2022, DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ins.2022.04.031.

[2] Evaluation mechanism design for the development level of urban-rural integration based on an improved TOPSIS method. Mathematics, 2022, 10(3): 380.