Scientists have much to contribute to the growing social movements pushing for urgent and transformative change to address the climate and biodiversity crises. Depending on their skills, interests and circumstances, scientists can actively participate in social movements as members (whether on the streets or behind-the-scenes), endorse and facilitate these movements in their professional capacity and within their institutions, and build social movement effectiveness through research and teaching.

Flooding is an ongoing and predicted impact of climate change in many parts of the world. Previous research shows that many people who have experienced flooding exhibit a greater preparedness to act on climate change, especially when the experience relates to more pronounced emotional responses. However, this research has mainly focused on general negative emotional reactions to flooding. Here, we re-analysed a large UK survey dataset (N = 1997) using mixed-methods to examine discrete emotional responses to flooding, including positive emotions, and their relationship with environmental intentions and policy support. Whilst anxiety, anger, helplessness, and distress, dominate people’s experience, positive emotions were also reported as significantly higher in our flooded group, particularly gratitude and pride in response to the receipt of external and community support; surprise was also observed. Thematic analysis highlighted perceived impacts of flooding, and the experience of positive support, as being key to alleviating distress and anxiety, as well as promoting subsequent positive long-term actions to reduce flooding. Notably indirect experience of flooding was also impactful with a range of emotional responses also reported by observers. Regression analysis indicated that higher levels of anxiety, distress, and gratitude were associated with greater intentions to act environmentally in the future (alongside greater levels of anger and lower levels of indifference), and to support for environmental policies (alongside greater levels of sympathy). We suggest that the provision of support following flooding may promote considerations of morality and climate change and increase the likelihood (of both recipients and observers) to undertake pro social and pro-environmental behaviour themselves in the future.

Major changes to how people travel are needed to address climate change, given that transport substantially contributes to global greenhouse gas emissions. Modal shift to low-carbon travel options is a key strategy for reducing emissions in the sector, with private car use particularly challenging given its central position in transport planning and wider culture and society. Trials can help to build an understanding of the practicalities of reducing car use and how people would respond to such a change, as well as contributing to advocacy efforts for lower-carbon transport options. This study focuses on a car free living trial that took place across four cities in England in 2022 (Birmingham, Bristol, Leeds, London). Seventeen in-depth interviews were conducted with ten regular car users from different circumstances who stopped using their car for three weeks, to explore their experiences of living car free. While driving had been habitual for most participants, going car free disrupted their routines and participants’ positive experiences raised their capacity to become less reliant on their cars. Family and social networks were important as influences on participants themselves and for changing the attitudes and practices of people close to them. At the same time, a lack of travel infrastructure and services impeded car free travel, with negative experiences reaffirming some people’s perceived convenience of car use.

Climate change is among the most complex problems facing societies, with far-reaching implications for the structure of economies to everyday life. There is no one way to meet carbon targets but decisions on how to do so have, so far, mostly involved politicians and experts. Climate assemblies (CAs) are attempting to give citizens a more direct role in decision-making. There is hope that by engaging more deeply with public perspectives, climate policies could be more ambitious, just, and effective. Existing research has shown that the ways in which CAs are designed has an important influence on their outcomes. This paper contributes to this literature by examining how the recommendations of CAs are influenced by the design of the deliberations, as well as the overall scope and remit of the process. We use two case studies–the Climate Assembly UK (CAUK) and the French Convention Citoyenne pour le Climat (CCC), combining our own observations from attending both processes with analysis of openly available materials. We discuss the extent to which the CAUK and CCC could be considered opening-up or closing-down deliberations and what this means for the way they represent public perspectives on climate policy. We find that both CAs had relatively closed framings around a specific policy target, but the CCC avoids the overly technical framing of climate change, by also including elements of urgency and social justice. The CAUK used a predominantly top-down approach to deliberations whereby the structure of process strongly privileged expert opinion within discussions and recommendations. The CCC used a much more bottom-up approach with recommendations being iteratively developed by citizens. Both processes struggled to engage with more systemic and transformative issues. These insights are important for those designing CAs as well as those who hope to understand more about public preferences on climate policies.

Interest in the relationship between the activities of universities and action on climate change is growing, but until recently there has been little focus on the critical role of researchers, particularly with regards to how research practices and culture can enable or inhibit change. This study addresses this gap, exploring researchers’ perceptions of universities’ measures to tackle their own emissions, their own engagement on issues surrounding the climate crisis, and challenges and opportunities for researchers to contribute to them. We present findings from a representative survey of 1,853 researchers from 127 UK universities across disciplines and career stages, including comparing responses across these professional differences, and analysis based on over 5,000 open text responses provided by the survey participants. The results show that while most have some knowledge of actions being taken by their universities and feel that universities’ public declarations of a climate emergency are making a difference, almost half think not enough is being done. They feel that responsibility for university climate action sits across government, universities and research councils, but almost all researchers are also personally worried about climate change and want to do more themselves to address it. For the most part, they also strongly support climate advocacy by those engaged in research. Yet high workload, uncertainty about what actions to take, perceived lack of agency or power, inflexible university processes and pressure to travel are just some of the many barriers researchers face in taking action. The study highlights how these barriers can be overcome, and the steps universities and researchers can take to better incorporate climate action into their research culture and practices.

To meet net zero goals, more drastic action is needed than is acknowledged by most policymakers, posing a major social challenge that will impact many aspects of people’s lives. This paper emphasises the importance of a people-centred approach for policy makers to achieve net zero effectively and rapidly while being alert to citizens’ needs and concerns. We advocate a comprehensive and inclusive public engagement strategy, discussing insights on four key questions to guide policymakers in developing successful engagement strategies. (1) How do climate-friendly social transformations happen?, (2) How can behavioural change for net zero be supported? (3) How can people be involved in decision-making on net zero?, and (4) How does climate change intersect with other societal challenges? We conclude with clear policy recommendations: government leadership at all levels (national, devolved, local), underpinned by a public engagement strategy for net zero, is needed in addition to fair and consistent policies that are transparent about the scale of action needed.

A positive and reciprocal relationship between subjective wellbeing and pro-environmental behaviour (PEB) has been observed across a range of countries worldwide. There is good reason however to think that the nature of the PEB-wellbeing link might vary between individuals and cross-culturally. We use data obtained in Brazil, China, Denmark, India, Poland, South Africa and the UK (total n = 6969) to test a series of hypotheses using preregistered regression models. First, we assess the relationship between PEB and wellbeing across countries, and test the 'privilege' hypothesis that this varies according to personal income and a country's level of development. Second, we consider the role of individual values and motivations in relation to PEB and wellbeing. To this end, we test the 'enhancement' hypothesis, in which the PEB-wellbeing link is strengthened by people holding particular values and motivations. Third, we consider the role of cultural differences for the nature of the PEBwellbeing link. We test the 'social green' hypothesis that public sphere behaviours (e.g. addressing environmental issues with other people) are more closely linked to wellbeing than are private sphere behaviours (e.g. product purchasing) in collectivistic cultures; in tandem, we assess whether private sphere behaviours are more closely linked to wellbeing in individualistic cultures. We obtain strong evidence for a PEB-wellbeing link across nations. There is partial evidence across countries to support the 'social green' hypothesis, but little evidence for the 'privilege' or 'enhancement' hypotheses. We discuss the implications of our findings for understanding the relationship between PEB and wellbeing, and consider how its promotion might feature in environmental and public health policy.

Time is short to secure a liveable and sustainable future; yet, inaction from governments, industry and civil society is setting the course for 3.2 °C of warming, with all the cascading and catastrophic consequences that this implies. In this context, when does civil disobedience by scientists become justified?

Measures of subjective wellbeing and life satisfaction—happiness, byothernames—do increase in general with personal income and a nation’s GDP. However, this is amore complex relation than is often assumed. For those on lower incomes, who may be struggling with the cost of living, substantial gains in life satisfaction can be had from even modest improvements inmaterial circumstances. But higher levels of income lead to ever diminishing returns, with some research even indicating that the association between incomeandhappiness goes into reverse at around the $100 000 salary mark.4

The Lancet Countdown is an international collaboration that independently monitors the health consequences of a changing climate. Publishing updated, new, and improved indicators each year, the Lancet Countdown represents the consensus of leading researchers from 43 academic institutions and UN agencies. The 44 indicators of this report expose an unabated rise in the health impacts of climate change and the current health consequences of the delayed and inconsistent response of countries around the globe—providing a clear imperative for accelerated action that puts the health of people and planet above all else.

The proportion of the world’s population exposed to above-average monthly temperatures has been rising consistently in recent decades and will continue to grow. This and similar trends make it more likely that people will personally experience extreme weather events and seasonal changes related to climate change. A question that follows from this is to what extent experiences may influence climate-related beliefs, attitudes, and the willingness to act. Although research is being done to examine the effects of such experiences, many of these studies have two important shortcomings. First, they propose effects of experiences but remain unclear on the psychological processes that underlie those effects. Second, if they do make assumptions about psychological processes, they do not typically corroborate them with empirical evidence. In other words, a considerable body of research in this field rests on relatively unfounded intuitions. To advance the theoretical understanding of how experiences of climate change could affect the motivation to act on climate change, we introduce a conceptual framework that organizes insights from psychology along three clusters of processes: 1) noticing and remembering, 2) mental representations, and 3) risk processing and decision-making. Within each of these steps, we identify and explicate psychological processes that could occur when people personally experience climate change, and we formulate theory-based, testable hypotheses. By making assumptions explicit and tying them to findings from basic and applied research from psychology, this paper provides a solid basis for future research and for advancing theory.

Despite three decades of political efforts and a wealth of research on the causes and catastrophic impacts of climate change, global carbon dioxide emissions have continued to rise and are 60% higher today than they were in 1990. Exploring this rise through nine thematic lenses—covering issues of climate governance, the fossil fuel industry, geopolitics, economics, mitigation modeling, energy systems, inequity, lifestyles, and social imaginaries—draws out multifaceted reasons for our collective failure to bend the global emissions curve. However, a common thread that emerges across the reviewed literature is the central role of power, manifest in many forms, from a dogmatic political-economic hegemony and influential vested interests to narrow techno-economic mindsets and ideologies of control. Synthesizing the various impediments to mitigation reveals how delivering on the commitments enshrined in the Paris Agreement now requires an urgent and unprecedented transformation away from today's carbon- and energy-intensive development paradigm.

On April 17, 2019, the University of Bristol became the first university in the United Kingdom (UK) to declare a climate emergency. Against a backdrop of high visibility and public concern about climate change, as well as climate emergency declarations from other sectors, another 36 UK universities followed suit over the next year. This paper explores what these climate emergency declarations show about how UK universities are responding to climate change and wider sustainability concerns, as well as how they view and present themselves in relation to this. Critical Discourse Analysis of the declarations allowed for in-depth scrutiny of the purpose and wider social context of the documents, demonstrating that they function as promotional statements, as presenting a collective voice, and showing a commitment from the universities to action. We argue that while these provide the potential for advancing sustainability within the sector, the tendency to use declarations as publicity and promotional material does detract from new commitments and action. The research contributes to the discussion around the role of universities as institutions with a responsibility both to act on climate change and to shape the broader societal response to it. It also provides insights as to how future research can evaluate universities in relation to their commitments and strategies, and provides suggestions to help ensure they live up to the promises and intentions that they have publicly made.

Addressing climate change requires profound behaviour change, not only in consumer action, but also in action as members of communities and organisations, and as citizens who can influence policies. However, while many behavioural models exist to explain and predict mitigation and adaptation behaviours, we argue that their utility in establishing meaningful change is limited due to their being too reductive, individualistic, linear, deliberative and blind to environmental impact. This has led to a focus on suboptimal intervention strategies, particularly informational approaches. Addressing the climate crisis requires a focus on high-impact behaviours and high-emitting groups; interdisciplinary interventions that address the multiple drivers, barriers and contexts of behaviour; and timing to ensure interventions are targeted to moments of change when habits are weaker.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has encouraged psychologists to become part of the integrated scientific effort to support the achievement of climate change targets such as keeping within 1.5 degrees C or 2 degrees C of global warming. To date, the typical psychological approach has been to demonstrate that specific concepts and theories can predict behaviors that contribute to or mitigate climate change. Psychologists need to go further and, in particular, show that integrating psychological concepts into feasible interventions can reduce greenhouse gas emissions far more than would be achieved without such integration. While critiquing some aspects of current approaches, we describe psychological research that is pointing the way by distinguishing different types of behavior. acknowledging sociocultural context, and collaborating with other disciplines. Engaging this challenge offers psychologists new opportunities for promoting mitigation. advancing psychological understanding, and developing better interdisciplinary interactions.