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Updated: Sep 6, 2025

Using Generative Art to Convey Past and Future Climate Transitions
Published on: March 31, 2023
Large but diminishing effects of climate action nudges under rising costs
Sebastian Berger1, Andreas Kilchenmann2, Oliver Lenz2
1University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland. sebastian.berger@unibe.ch.
Abstract:
Behavioural public policy has received broad research attention, particularly in the domain of motivating pro-environmental behaviours. We investigate how far the efficacy of arguably one the most popular behavioural policy tools (green 'default change' nudges) depends on the associated cost. On the basis of a field study involving carbon offsets for over 30,000 flights booked by more than 11,000 airline customers, we show that green defaults have a large effect on voluntary climate action, even when several hundreds of Euros are at stake. The effect fully vanishes only as costs approach approximately €800.
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