Addressing climate change with behavioral science: A global intervention tournament in 63 countries

Area of Science:

• Environmental Psychology
• Behavioral Science
• Climate Change Mitigation

Background:

• Global climate change necessitates significant behavioral shifts.
• Identifying effective strategies to motivate climate action remains a challenge.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the effectiveness of 11 diverse behavioral interventions on climate change beliefs and actions.
• To determine which interventions best motivate changes in policy support, information sharing, and pro-environmental behaviors.

Main Methods:

• A large-scale international study involving 59,440 participants across 63 countries.
• Testing 11 expert-selected interventions targeting climate beliefs, policy support, information sharing, and tree planting behavior.

Main Results:

• Interventions had small effects, primarily benefiting non-climate skeptics.
• Specific interventions showed modest success: decreasing psychological distance for beliefs, letter writing for policy support, and negative emotion induction for information sharing.
• No intervention effectively increased effortful behaviors like tree planting; some even reduced it.
• Intervention effectiveness varied significantly based on participants' initial climate beliefs.

Conclusions:

• Behavioral interventions for climate change mitigation have limited and context-dependent impacts.
• Tailoring strategies to specific audiences and desired behaviors is crucial for effective climate action.
• Future research should focus on developing interventions for more effortful pro-environmental behaviors.