In late October, it felt like the alarming climate and biodiversity reports were raining down as heavily as the stories about climate change-induced extreme weather events.
The UN’s annual Emissions Gap report warns that earth’s climate could warm by 3.1 degrees Celsius if we continue on our current course. The latest edition of the World Wildlife Fund’s Living Planet report found that global wildlife populations have declined by 73% on average over the past 50 years.
The latest report from the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (Planbureau voor de Leefomgeving) stated that the chance to reach the Dutch climate goals in 2030 is slipping away, and that changes that will positively impact our ability to reach those goals need to be made – now.
“Too little action”
The recently appointed minister for climate and green growth, Sophie Hermans (VVD), acknowledged that too little action is being taken to achieve the Dutch goal of reducing CO2 emissions by 49% compared to levels in 1990. “The low hanging fruit has already been picked”, Hermans told the Dutch newspaper NRC. “That means that there are irrevocable, difficult choices ahead.”
The news that Donald Trump has been re-elected, despite calling climate change a hoax and pledging to remove the United States from the Paris Agreement (again), is another red flag for the state of the environment now and the role that the United States could play in mitigating climate change in the years to come.
Taking action now
Meanwhile, families are being swept away by hurricane flooding in America now. Hundreds of people are being killed due to torrential downpours in Spain now. Extreme rainfall is destroying homes in the Czech Republic and Poland now. All of these weather disasters, exacerbated by climate change, have happened in just the past six weeks.
The severe impacts of climate change are not in some distant future, but are happening right now. Research by our group members has found that psychological distance to climate change is much smaller than often suggested. The majority of people worldwide are worried about climate change’s impact on their own lives in the present moment, not in some distant future or as something that will only harm other people who live far away.
So what can we do now, and how can the government help?
We need support from government policies to enable us to act pro-environmentally. People are motivated to protect the environment, but each person can only act as sustainably as the systems they live in.
Yet it is also true that we have more agency and impact in our personal and collective behavior than we may realize. Recent studies have shown that Dutch people with a higher socio-economic status and American citizens underestimate how much their lifestyles contribute to climate change, which implies the inverse: we can play a big role in reducing climate risks by making lifestyle changes.
Support
Politicians and companies often claim there is a lack of public support for environmental policy, but that is simply not true. People want more policy, not less. A 2023 survey by the European Commission found that 87% of respondents think it is important that their national government take action to increase renewable energy.
Similarly, the Dutch Scientific Climate Council reports that 75% of Dutch adults are concerned about climate change, and people generally strongly care about protecting nature and the environment and are intrinsically motivated to act pro-environmentally.
There are plenty of ways that we can contribute to a circular economy, but the behaviours with the highest impact are often less popular due to systemic barriers, among others. That is why we need support from our systems and leaders, and those influential entities also need to fully understand just how much we support them taking more decisive action.
Intrinsic motivation
In her paper in Review of Psychology, Linda Steg described what role our values play in our motivation to take climate action. As other research from our group has shown, most people are motivated to take climate action, but other factors may hold them back, creating a value-behavior gap.
To play into our intrinsic motivation to behave pro-environmentally, people have to be informed about what sustainable alternatives are out there, know where to find them, and – crucially – be able to use them.
Less polarisation
Another oft cited excuse for lack of strong climate legislation is the polarization of public opinions, yet research from our group also shows that we are less polarized than we are often led to believe:
“Observing the extreme and partisan opinions expressed in the public information environment, the public may develop shared misperceptions of a divided society. Thus, correcting these misperceptions could be one powerful strategy for improving collective environmental decision-making.”
Bottom-up initiatives
Bottom-up climate initiatives, like local litter pick up days or community energy initiatives, are increasingly popular and are often positively embraced by the general public because they are seen as a grassroots effort emerging from the people.
Caring about the environment isn’t the only reason to get involved, either: such activities also help us to be more in touch with our neighbors and create a stronger sense of community.
As a matter of fact, the social aspect is reason enough for some people to get involved, even for people who don’t identify environmental issues as their top priority. But by taking part in a group that has a pro-environmental identity, that can in turn positively influence their sense of environmental self-identity, which makes it likelier that they will behave more sustainably.
Helping, not hindering
Citizens and businesses in the Netherlands that want to become more sustainable, or generate their own green energy, encounter barriers along the way. Current laws and regulations – both locally and internationally – do not always accurately account for community energy initiatives, and can leave motivated individuals feeling they are being prevented from doing something good for the climate.
The appeal of community efforts is that they don’t have to wait for policy to catch up, but they can be still be better facilitated by laws that recognize their existence and help to meet their needs.
The Dutch National Climate Platform is calling on the Dutch cabinet to strengthen the status of bottom up initiatives, and to capitalize on the energy from society to make the transition away from fossil fuels. It should not be cast as a binary of either top down or bottom up as the best solution: we need both. Many Dutch people are already involved in citizen-led actions, like energy cooperatives: as of 2023, there were 714 known energy cooperatives in the Netherlands.
“The scientific basis for adopting ambitious climate policy is overwhelming”
In response to the PBL publication, the Dutch Scientific Climate Council (WKR) (of which our colleague Linda Steg is a member) reiterated the urgency to make political decisions now that will shape what the Netherlands looks like in 2050. The WKR is also calling for the transition toward more environmentally-minded policy on energy, urban planning and materials to happen now in order to reduce emissions.
“Working toward a better climate is a given for many people, because it’s more fair and more economically beneficial”, their most recent statement reads:
“The scientific basis for adopting ambitious climate policy is overwhelming. Social and political support for policy is huge, so policy makers should realize they’re not alone. And we know that climate policy works. We have the wind in our sails to get back on track and achieve our climate goals.”
Having hope that we can make positive change is what gives us agency, individually and collectively. Climate authorities on every level are making explicit the role of governments in preventing the worst case scenarios for rising temperatures, calling upon them to listen to the will of the people who want more climate policy and to further empower citizens to take actions themselves.
