Abstract
AbstractHumanity has a shrinking window to drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions, yet climate action is still lacking on both individual and policy levels. We argue that this is because behavioral interventions have largely neglected the basic principles of operant conditioning as one set of tools to promote collective climate action. In this perspective, we propose an operant conditioning framework that uses rewards and punishments to shape transportation, food, waste, housing, and civic actions. This framework highlights the value of reinforcement in encouraging the switch to low-emission behavior, while also considering the benefit of decreasing high-emission behavior to expedite the transition. This approach also helps explain positive and negative spillovers from behavioral interventions. This paper provides a recipe to design individual-level and system-level interventions to generate and sustain low-emission behavior to help achieve net zero emissions.
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Details
Published
Apr 11, 2024
Vol/Issue
19(4)
Pages
1503-1517
License
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Funding
Canada Research Chair Program
Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Award: 435-2023-0312
Indigenous Graduate Fellowship Award: 6481
Cite This Article
Jiaying Zhao, Jade Radke, Frances S. Chen, et al. (2024). How do we reinforce climate action?. Sustainability Science, 19(4), 1503-1517. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-024-01486-6