Farmers are on the frontlines of the climate crisis, with changing rainfall and increasingly extreme weather making their livelihoods less predictable. Shifting to more sustainable farming practices can help buffer against these impacts ― yet in the face of uncertainty, many farmers prefer to stick to the methods they know.
Farmers in Colombia’s Norte de Santander region were no exception, at first. But recently change has taken root. The Lands for Life program, led by the non-profit Rare, worked closely with local farmers and found that they were more likely to adopt new practices if they saw others successfully doing so (“social proof”) or if they believed it was expected (“social pressure”). A few farmers involved with the program began exploring techniques like composting and organic farming. As their production rose and their land improved, others followed suit. Today sustainable farming is becoming a norm in the community, and the program has expanded to new areas.
There’s a lesson here, and not just for farmers. Every part of society will need to adapt to climate change in different ways ― from city dwellers dealing with extreme heat, to coastal communities experiencing sea-level rise, to businesses managing supply chain risks. Yet adaptation measures are often viewed as too expensive, too complex or too far in the future; something that can be put off for now.
But what if, like in Norde de Santander, new behaviors that boost resilience to climate change become the norm?
As the need for climate adaptation grows, behavioral science could be one of the keys to unlocking action on a much broader scale than we’ve seen to date. It can help uncover what’s blocking us from adapting to climate change and provide insights on how to design solutions so that people feel more compelled ― and empowered ― to act.
Why Shifting Behaviors Is Critical to Building Climate Resilience
Despite global commitments to bolster climate resilience, adaptation efforts continue to be too small, slow and scattered to address the enormity of the climate crisis. These efforts are also vastly underfunded: In 2024, the global adaptation finance gap was estimated at $187-$359 billion per year.
Many of the barriers to closing this gap are external and structural in nature. Large-scale adaptation won’t happen until governments and other stakeholders set clear action plans, build up their technical capacities, and scale up finance and implementation.
However, some of the barriers are perceived: People don’t favor taking action when it’s not clear when or how climate hazards will play out. The benefits of adaptation often seem years away, and short-term priorities tend to take up most of our available attention and resources.
Climate uncertainty doesn’t mean we can’t take action now to prepare for the future. In fact, data shows that investing in adaptation not only saves lives, protects economies and reduces damages, but also results in economic, social and environmental benefits, even when anticipated disasters don’t occur. Yet these benefits aren’t always clear or easy to calculate, while the upfront cost of action is real and immediate.
Behavioral science can help overcome some of these barriers. A better understanding of what drives people to act (or not act), and accounting for this in the design and roll-out of plans, could break through some of the challenges adaptation is currently facing. This could help move from planning to implementation, attract much-needed funding, and develop more effective and sustained solutions at the community level.
We explored three ways to unlock this potential:
1) Designing Projects and Programs to Empower Communities
Studies have shown that adaptation initiatives can be more effective when local communities are meaningfully involved in planning and implementation. But building local momentum (and sustaining it over the long term) can be challenging. Decision-makers often assume that providing people with more information leads to changes in behavior; however, a growing body of research shows that information alone is not enough to drive lasting change. Other variables, which vary by group and situation, often play more decisive roles.
In Fiji, for example, increased flooding and poor land management are eroding riverbanks that provide a vital source of food, water and income for many communities. Between 2018 and 2020 the Fijian government piloted a project to address this threat. It provided select communities with free vetiver seedlings, a deep-rooted grass that can help stabilize riverbank soils. It also offered a collective payment to each village and held a training session on vetiver planting, targeted at men and youth.
But in 2023, when project observers returned, they found little to no vetiver growing on the riverbanks of the three villages surveyed. Community members confirmed that most of the plants had been left unattended and washed away.
This “intention-action gap” is common in many projects ― where despite having the best intentions and access to resources, behaviors don’t change. The question is, why?
Interviews with villagers revealed that even though Fiji’s government provided free seedlings, the one-time vetiver training session wasn’t enough to build up the skills and confidence needed for planting (a behavioral driver called “self-efficacy”). In addition, women, who are important custodians the region’s riverbanks, were left out. Discussions revealed that the project could have been improved by offering more ― and more inclusive ― trainings; emphasizing a collective sense of responsibility with regular support from the local government; and tapping into community members’ strong concerns about flooding and erosion (“salience of loss”), as well as their cultural attachment to their land.
Identifying behavior drivers like this at the beginning of a project, and tweaking the approach over time based on how people respond and what works best, can lead to more effective interventions and maintain momentum long-term.
2) Changing the Way Climate Risks Are Communicated to Spur Action
Climate risks might seem far off in the future, and it’s natural to focus on the current moment (what’s known as “present bias”) and problems that are prominent now (“salience effect”). But emerging climate communications strategies, tied to behavior change insights, can help people better understand the pressing risks that climate change poses ― and what to do about them. These include crafting powerful messages by:
- leveraging trusted messengers;
- aligning communications with audiences’ values;
- building trust between policymakers and the public;
- highlighting solutions;
- storytelling;
- and bringing the future into the present.
In Malabon City ― a cyclone- and flood-prone area of Manila, Philippines ― locals rely on the national government’s weather agency for climate risk information. Partners for Resilience (a network of civil society organizations and nonprofits focused on reducing disaster risk) leveraged this trusted relationship by printing out the government’s flood risk maps on large tarps and visibly posting them in different neighborhoods.
The signs served as a daily reminder for households and community members to know their evacuation zones. They also promoted strategies like mangrove restoration that can help reduce flood risk. In addition, the city trained local officials in community-based disaster risk management, enabling them to work directly with residents on understanding local threats and developing response plans.
Storytelling ― whether through writing, film, TV or otherwise ― is another powerful strategy that’s often been overlooked by climate communicators. But climate stories are starting to emerge more frequently, such as the documentary Years of Living Dangerously, the UN-MIET Africa radio program and novels like The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson. Research shows that by creating relatable characters and visualizing progress, along with knowing what motivates the audience, stories like these can shift how people think about and respond to climate risks.
Climate impacts and adaptation benefits can also be brought into the present through novel communication methods. Virtual Planet Technologies has used virtual reality (VR) headsets to show individuals and policymakers, in 360 degrees, how coastal erosion, worsening storms, sea-level rise and extreme heat could affect their communities in the future. After watching waters rise to overtake beaches and parks, users can explore how solutions, such as restoring mangroves or building a sea wall, may reduce climate risks.
Residents of climate-vulnerable communities who experienced this VR stated that it increased their awareness of the risks and the steps they can take to build resilience. Importantly, the focus on solutions helps people stay engaged and motivated, rather than feeling hopeless
3) Using Policy to Remove Behavior Change Barriers
At the upstream level are national and local governments, which play crucial roles in shaping people’s decision-making contexts. They can use behavioral insights to design better programs and policies that help people plan for and respond to climate risks.
A key piece of the puzzle is overcoming barriers like cost and convenience that might prevent people ― especially vulnerable groups ― from changing the way they do things.
Following the record-breaking heat wave of 2003, which claimed over 70,000 lives, European policymakers realized that heat warning systems alone are not enough to drive people to take heat safety measures. This prompted France, Germany, Belgium and many other countries to begin integrating behavior change into their heat response plans.
These countries started tailoring messaging to at-risk groups like the elderly, children and those with chronic health conditions. They provided incentives such as cooling equipment discounts, and leveraged social media campaigns to amplify heat warnings and heat safety behaviors. Some cities, such as Paris and Brussels, made it easier for people to stay safe during extreme heat days by creating more green urban spaces and providing extended access to air-conditioned cooling centers, fountains and swimming pools.
Indeed, there are many ways countries can leverage policy to shift people toward pro-climate behaviors. But these are largely underutilized. Our review of 20 countries’ national climate commitments showed that most are not leveraging behavior tools as much as they should to reduce greenhouse gas emissions ― and that when they do, they’re using only a limited set of the tools available. Climate adaptation is even further behind.
We Can and Should Start Using These Tools Today
Understanding what drives different behaviors is essential for governments and other decision-makers to enable and incentivize climate adaptation on a larger scale. Research shows that leveraging behavioral science for adaptation is less costly and resource-intensive, and can be more effective, than interventions that don’t intentionally incorporate behavior change.
Knowledge of how behavior change can support environmental and climate goals is expanding. Until now, behavior change research on environmental issues has centered on short-term decisions and actions, not on the medium- and longer-term timeframes that are so critical to climate adaptation. More studies are needed on which factors drive and deter adaptation behaviors, how these vary by context, and how to evaluate and capture all the co-benefits of adaptation action. Lessons from other disciplines where behavior science is more advanced, such as health care, business and education, can help inform this research. Funding case studies and trials to learn what works ― and what doesn’t ― is crucial.
While knowledge gaps remain, our understanding of what drives human behavior has progressed enough to start informing adaptation policy, program design and the broader climate-decision-making environment. A suite of resources is already publicly available to learn from and build on. Behavior change alone will not solve climate adaptation, but it should be a critical part of the toolbox that does.
