Changing Minds

In the opening paragraph of a report published in June 2020, the Bank of England states: The Covid-19 pandemic is causing unprecedented disruption to our daily lives and the global economy. The threat from climate change is just as real and potentially at least as devastating.

Why is it that climate change is recognised as a massive threat, but largely we act as if it isn’t there?

It turns out our thinking (and lack of action) around climate change is deeply influenced by psychology and cognitive biases. These biases have names such as the Bystander Effect (if my neighbour doesn’t change her lifestyle, then should I?) – we take cues from our surroundings, and we assume someone else is handling it.

At the level of government, climate change action suffers from excessive discounting and political calculations (short termism). The Stern Review showed that the costs of climate proofing the economy back in 2006 would amount to around 1 percent of economic growth, while not doing so would cost us between  5 and 25 percent of economic growth when the impacts hit. Yet, governments to a large extent decided to sit on the fence.

In July 2020 I spoke to Joe Devlin of UCL’s Changing Minds project about our biases, flaws, but also about how hopeful I am that we are entering a new phase where action on climate gets the attention it deserves.