Harnessing Behavioral Tailwinds for Climate Action

Current mitigation and adaptation efforts are inadequate to address climate change,
threatening the wellbeing of people and planet. Behavioral scientists often point to regularities of human decision-making as barriers to climate action. Addressing climate change requires long term planning, yet individuals are myopic and tend to discount the future; climate change and its solutions are uncertain, yet people avoid risks and are averse to change; mitigation requires large scale coordination and cooperation, yet people prioritize their own self-interest. These headwinds—the
behavioral and psychological tendencies standing in the way of climate action—are often invoked to explain why humans are ill-equipped to deal with the complex, interdependent and dynamic problem of climate change. Here, we challenge the utility of the view that human psychology is fundamentally at odds with climate action. First, this view of human behavior overlooks the embedded and context dependent nature of preferences, beliefs, choices, and even technologies—these are not fixed or homogeneous but rather are shaped by broader sociocultural, institutional, and environmental actors. Second, the focus on behavioral deficits and barriers to climate action overlooks the tailwinds—that is, behavioral tendencies and contextual factors that might be harnessed in service of climate action. Indeed, some commonly invoked headwinds might be adaptive responses to dynamic
environments and may be leveraged to accelerate rather than impede change. We discuss some examples, develop the seeds of what such a research agenda might look like, and argue that a focus on tailwinds could expand the solution space for climate action by increasing our sense of collective agency.

Cárdenas, J.C., S.M. Constantino, and C. Schill.. 2024. Beijer Discussion Paper 281: Harnessing Behavioral Tailwinds for Climate Action. Beijer Discussion Paper Series.