Climate change risks and adaptation measures - a study on micro enterprises in Mozambique

Research on the adaptation measures that small firms can implement is scant. While we know that most manufacturing firms do not apply any adaptation measures, we know less about the reasons for this inaction. From research in agriculture, we know that information related to climate change and adaptation has the potential to increase people’s adaptive behaviour. We therefore want to test if the lack of sufficient information about adaptation measures can explain why small firms in Mozambique do not adapt to climate change. Specifically, we will provide firm owners with information about adaptation measures that they could quickly and inexpensively implement on their own. We then test whether information about adaptation impacts firm owners’ attitudes towards and their use of adaptation measures.

Second, learning about adaptation measures has also been shown to increase people’s concerns about CC (Carrico et al. 2015). Thus, we will examine whether our treatment affects firm owners’ risk perceptions. Specifically, risk perceptions may act as a mediator between the treatment and attitude towards adaptation measures. This means that our information treatment may increase firm owners’ risk perceptions, which in turn impacts attitudes towards and use of adaptation measures. On the other hand, risk perceptions may moderate the treatment effect, i.e. the treatment may have different effects depending on firm owners’ initial risk perceptions. We will test the mediator/moderator role of risk perceptions in one section of the experiment’s analysis.