A study on roles of public survey and focus groups to assess public opinions for CCS implementation

The authors conducted a set of focus groups and a public survey to assess awareness and potential acceptability of CCS in the context of national policy formulation in 2009-2010. In 2010, the authors also conducted focus groups to assess awareness of CCS and to identify information needs to form local opinion for CCS demonstration project in the context of local implementation in a potential project site. By comparing the results of those assessments, roles of focus groups and public survey are clarified. In national policy context, focus group assessment helps to design a public survey as well as provides an example of the public’s thought on CCS, and shows some processes of opinion formulation through group dynamics. In local context, qualitative assessments through focus groups and other methodology such as interviews and local meeting would play important role to understand local public opinion. Meanwhile, the cautions that focus group would not provide comprehensive assessments on public opinion and might pick exaggerated opinions are drawn in using focus group data.