The psychology of climate change
11 key insights to improve public and political engagement with the climate crisis
There is a huge asymmetry in who pollutes the planet. Twenty or so fossil fuel companies are responsible for more than one-third of all greenhouse gas emissions globally [1]. Professor Kevin Anderson explains [2] — referring to a Lucas Chancel and Thomas Piketty report [3] on carbon and inequality as well as the research of Yannick Oswald et al. on large inequality in international energy footprints [4] — that definitive action is required from the top ~10% of the population, in terms of power, wealth and influence, who contribute to more than 50% of global emissions (and 70% from 20%). In his talk, Anderson points out that:
If regulations required that 10% to reduce their carbon footprint to the level of the average EU citizen, and the other 90% made no change to their lifestyles, then global emissions would be cut by over 30%…Add up the ‘pledges’ [NDCs] made by nations and there is no real reduction in global emissions even by 2030 — yet 30% is possible within a year if we just tailored polices towards the hi-emitters. It’s not enough to stay below 2°C — but it’s one significant and rapid step in the right direction.
He calls for a three-phase strategy [2b] to “bring emissions down immediately to address both CO2 budgets and inequality, asking for 1) profound changes in the energy behaviours and practices of high-energy users (in the immediate and near term); 2) very stringent energy efficiency standards on all major end-use equipment (in the near to medium term); and a 3) Marshall-style construction of ~zero CO2 energy supply and major electrification (in medium to long term).”
We must be aware of just how environmentally inequitable our lives are. The most polluted urban areas also tend to be the areas with the lowest property values. Additionally, marginalised communities are often least involved and have the least power in decision-making processes, making them vulnerable to living in ‘sacrifice zones’, which is when polluting industries or infrastructure are located next to or within low-income communities.
Fran Tonkiss explains in her talk [5], ‘Divided Cities: Urban inequalities in the 21st century’ that “one of the crudest inequities in contemporary cities is between those whose lifestyles produce environmental harms and those whose livelihoods and living situations make them most vulnerable to these harms.” She talks about the deeply uneven and unjust geographies of environmental risk. As she puts it:
Strategies for more environmentally sustainable cities must go beyond issues of design and technology to address toxic environmental inequalities. More sustainable urban futures that don’t simply depend on finding better technical solutions but on a more serious commitment on environmental equity in cities and elsewhere.
Enabling change at scale will require direct government intervention.
David Ockwell et al. note that “despite regulation being a seemingly useful way of overcoming barriers to low carbon [and low pollution] behaviour” [6c], governments are generally reserved when it comes to regulatory action for “fear of a negative public backlash” [6d]. Other reasons include political short-termism, the impacts of lobbying efforts, and the prioritisation of economic growth over social and environmental values [6;24].
Sustained public engagement will be key in enabling, perhaps forcing, political action. People will not only need to change their behaviour and consume less but also be more informed about what they are asking their governments to do, so they implement the right solutions and move beyond ‘greenwashing’ exercises or fig-leaf interventions that give the false impression that something is being done.
What are the current barriers to individual behaviour change and how can psychology help overcome them?
Dr Sander van der Linden et al. [7] argue that key insights from psychological science should be used to improve behavioural science interventions and that “psychological science has important insights to offer policymakers in managing climate change” [7a].
This set of insights might serve as a useful guide for designers of strategies, systems, places, services, and new products:
1. Set new normative expectations and better social signals
H. Wesley Perkins and Alan D. Berkowitz emphasise the role of peers regarding people’s behaviours. They describe how peer influences are affected more by people’s “perceptions of peer behaviours” [9] rather than by their peer’s actual behaviour; therefore, correcting some of these inaccuracies or misperceptions might bring about more successful outcomes in enabling behaviour change.
Noah J. Goldstein et al. [10] also explain how behaviours are often dependent on the beliefs people have of what others do and what people think others expect of them to do. In her research, Cristina Bicchieri [11] demonstrates how people’s perception of fairness also depends on expectations and beliefs about what they think they ought to do in a given situation.
Seeing the behaviour of important others in their direct family and friends’ circles is key in shaping people’s behaviour. Robert Frank explains in his talk, the Psychology of Climate Change [12], that behaviour is ‘contagious’ and setting the right examples may have the fastest impact in addressing the climate crisis. For example, while studying the uptake of solar panels in California, Bryan Bollinger and Kenneth Gillingham describe how people seeing their neighbour’s panels installed on the roof increases the probability of them doing the same thing [13].
As van der Linden [8a] explains, social nudges are crucial as it improves people’s perceived ability to make a difference, as that is often subject to their perception of how many others are participating and taking action. In other words, the more of us follow the desired norm and talk about a given issue, the stronger the “social signal becomes” — persuading others to further comply. Or as Robert B. Cialdini et al. refer to it “if everyone is doing it, it must be a sensible thing to do.” [14]
In some cases, norms can also have a reverse effect. In case of energy reduction for example, when in a field experiment participants’ energy consumption was compared to the average use of their neighbours, they adjusted their use to the norm, even if that meant they started to consume more than they did previously [8a]. So norms can have a negative effect, but the more people hear their close friends, family, and social circles talking about environmental issues, the more global warming will be viewed as a risk that requires further action. This does not only increase people’s perception of risk but their “intention to act” [7b].
2. Design for collective action ＼( 0_0 )／
People often feel their individual actions do not matter and are somewhat futile when it comes to the inaction of a whole world of other people; that their efforts are ineffective especially if others are not taking action either. Perceived governmental inaction is another major barrier to change.
People’s perceived self-efficacy — how capable people feel that they can change a specific behaviour [15]— is often subject to their perception of how many others are participating and taking action [8a]. van der Linden et al. argue that promoting collective efficacy — the belief that group actions can make a difference — will encourage individuals to take action: “it is often more effective to appeal to and leverage the social context in which people make decisions” [7b].
3. Design environments (e.g. institutions, infrastructure, cities, systems, products, etc.) that enable low-pollution behaviours by default
Different environments can encourage or discourage different behaviours [16]. The design of many neighbourhoods, for example, still supports drivers instead of pedestrians and cyclists [16b]. Elizabeth Shove [16a] gives the example of urban planning and public health and argues how obesogenic environments, how active or inactive people are within a given environment, how much they exercise and even their diet are “socially, institutionally, and infrastructurally configured” [16a]. She emphasises that the focus needs to be shifted from individual choice and that “the extent to which state and other actors configure the fabric and the texture of daily life” [ibid.] need to be recognised and clearly explained. Shove raises the idea of “envirogenic environments” that could engender the “reproduction of variously sustainable ways of life” [16b].
Buckminster Fuller [17] explains a similar idea about the importance of the environment we live in:
I made up my mind at this point that I would never try to reform man — that’s much too difficult. What I would do was to try to modify the environment in such a way as to get man moving in preferred directions.
Of course, some environments can move us into their preferred directions or directions we have never wanted to go.
4. Bridge the divide between bottom-up and top-down action
Ockwell et al. [6h] suggest bridging the divide between top-down and bottom-up approaches by using communication to stimulate public demand for environmental regulation through advocacy and lobbying. In this way, they argue, change comes about through the public engaging with an issue and then taking voluntary, bottom-up action. This public demand makes top-down government action more likely, for example, the introduction of regulations to control polluting behaviours. They can signal to their leaders that environmental regulation is both important and desirable [6h]. Also, the more our lifestyles align with the systems changes we will need to put in place, the easier it will be for decision-makers to implement those changes.
5. Move away from negative messages that paralyse people
Negative messages often paralyse people [18], while positive messages and visions surrounding climate change might connect this complex challenge to people’s desires to live a meaningful life. Van der Linden also explains that people are “less likely to take action when losses are paired with uncertainty” [7c]; therefore losses that society endures at this moment in time and focusing on positive and tangible gains from actions at present — instead of emphasising negative, future impacts — will both be more likely to be successful in engaging people in the long run.
However, each one of us is different and are moved by different things. Some people take action by seeing/hearing negative news; therefore, one-off, homogeneous messages will not be able to address our differences.
6. Bring climate change closer to home and talk about the actions you make to improve it
Building on the previous point, Ron Nesse and Michael Baechler [19] note that the “translation of abstract data into meaningful information for people to use, and tools to help them make a positive impact” might also have a more enduring effect. Statistical representations of global warming often fail to elicit action as stats and numbers on their own often mean very little to people. At present, it is also hard for people to understand climate change if their lives haven’t been directly affected by it. Van der Linden et al. suggest that public policymakers will need to “appeal to both people’s analytical and experiential processing systems” [7b] and describe the impacts of climate change through personal, local and relevant experiences, engaging metaphors and narratives [7b]:
climate change risks need to be translated into relatable and concrete personal experiences
Van der Linden et al. also explains that people’s daily worries overwrite plans for the future. Therefore, replacing current narratives about a future and (both spatially and temporarily) distant threats with the present, local challenges that are already happening in people’s immediate environments and communities might be more effective in engaging people in the long-term [7c].
7. Frame climate change as a health issue
Jan C. Semenza et al. [20] suggest that climate change could be framed from a health perspective to enable behaviour change. They suggest that heatwaves, droughts and forest fires are threats that people are more likely to act upon, especially if they are perceived as endangering their health or life. Lorraine Whitmarsh [21] proposes that air pollution might be the right point of departure for linking climate change to people’s lives and “weaving climate change into discourses of pollution” might achieve a more direct and personal effect.
8. Watch out for ‘optimism bias’ ヽ(^o^)ノ
As a result of ‘optimism bias’ [7c], people often believe that environmental challenges are only happening to others and not to themselves. It is an interesting challenge for those who want to better understand the psychology of climate change and make people understand that, if we do not urgently cut our emissions, we will be all severely affected by global warming one way or another.
9. Let people participate and harness the community to motivate them
There is overwhelming evidence that the more people participate in decision making the more they will adopt decisions as their own. Bruno Frey and Alois Stutzer [22] also explain that “external interventions crowd-out intrinsic motivation if they are perceived to be controlling, and they crowd-in intrinsic motivation if they are perceived to be supporting”. Designing for this ‘crowding-in effect’, intrinsic motivation can be supported by community- and team-based structures. Communication strategies and the right design interventions can help raise the intrinsic motivation of people to cooperate, ‘join the cause’ and help others.
10. Question current approaches to individual behaviour change
Currently, there seems to be a deliberate overemphasis on and implicit faith in citizens as the agents of change. While public awareness is important, changing people’s attitudes and beliefs about climate change will not be enough to overcome the structural, infrastructural [6g], political, economic and social barriers that can delay and limit people’s ability to enable meaningful change. For example, we can’t ask people in rural areas to leave their cars at home without providing adequate public transport or to ask people to start cycling in cities without safe and dedicated cycle lanes. Climate change policies need to be more nuanced and reflect the fact that people have very different needs and can face very different infrastructural challenges in rural environments, in the outskirts of cities or in city centres. One-off solutions might disproportionately favour one group over another which then ultimately leads to the rejection of these policies and exclusion of different groups in society, even when people have the best intention at heart to comply with them.
The writer Kim Stanley Robinson [23] states that the things that only governments can control in regard to the climate crisis are “tax on carbon use and excessive consumption, the switch of subsidies from fossil-fuel companies to clean energy sources, compliance with the Paris Accord goals”. He goes on to say that the
continuous replacement of the existing infrastructure to reduce carbon emissions and accommodate more people on less land, along with improved agricultural practices will be the determining feature of the 21st century
The dialogue needs to change, so the necessary systems changes that govern our behaviour will be implemented in a more equitable way. Governments, private corporations, and the financial sector can help create the environments needed for public change (more on this in the next blog post, Enabling the necessary systems changes to address the climate crisis).
11. Keep questioning what is offered to you
The reasons why we do not ‘see’ pollution or have been delayed for years in realising what kind of crisis we are experiencing is not only because pollutants are physically tiny or because climate change can seem a threat only in a distant future. In her book, The Politics of Invisibility, Olga Kuchinskaya [24], argues that “public visibility [of radiation] depends on whose voices can be heard and which groups have institutional and infrastructural support”. In her discussion of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, she describes the politics and “production of invisibility”, its consequences for the people of Belarus and the “various strategies used by industries to displace dangerous toxins as objects of public attention” [ibid.].
Kuchinskaya goes on to describe how in these cases public debates on hazards have been reframed [ibid.]:
promoting fake debate where there was a scientific consensus, silencing critics, orchestrating studies to counter even strong evidence of harm, blaming victims’ genetic makeup or lifestyles, and also presenting a lack of monitoring as an absence of health effects.
Building on Kuchinskaya’s argument, similarly to radiation, climate change can also be made either more salient and publicly visible or unobservable, depending on how its effects are represented to us.
One interesting example of this, described in Mark Kaufman’s research [25], is how British Petroleum (BP) popularised the term carbon footprint “in a way which assigns responsibility for climate impact to the individual”, removing itself as a contributor to the problem of climate change:
The strategy is to put as much blame on the consumer as possible…it basically ensures that nothing changes…
It is crucial to understand the current ways in which politically-, economically-and technologically-driven invisibility around climate change is constructed and investigate how the realities of what we will be facing in the upcoming few decades could be made more transparent, easy-to-understand, socially visible and improved.
Achieving a commitment to a just and more equitable transition will depend on these narratives and how they are communicated to the public by those with political and economic influence and power.
You can find Bibliography and References here.
(As usual, I appreciate/welcome any comments and ideas. Please send your thoughts to gyorgyigalik.medium@gmail.com)
Gyorgyi Galik is a London-based innovation designer, design strategist, and environmental advocate. She is a Lead Advisor and Programme Manager at Design Council’s Cities Programme. She is also at the finish of her Ph.D. studies in Innovation Design Engineering, School of Design at the Royal College of Art. With a background in social design, behavioural science, and environmental health, she has more than a decade of experience delivering experimental research, design and technology projects in the corporate, governmental and non-governmental sectors.
