Technology-minded climate delegates support less stringent climate policies
Technology-minded climate delegates support less stringent climate policies | Nature Sustainability
Abstract
To transform global policies and actions on climate change, Meadows’ leverage framework highlights the need to identify deep leverage points such as mindset and paradigm shifts. Our analysis focuses on the mindset of climate delegates regarding the paradigm that technological innovation can achieve the 1.5 °C target without systemic changes. Surveying delegates from the 24th Conference of the Parties (COP24) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) reveals that respondents believing in technological solutions indeed support less stringent climate policies.
This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution
Access options
Access Nature and 54 other Nature Portfolio journals
Get Nature+, our best-value online-access subscription
$29.99 / 30 days
cancel any time
Subscribe to this journal
Receive 12 digital issues and online access to articles
$119.00 per year
only $9.92 per issue
Buy this article
- Purchase on SpringerLink
- Instant access to full article PDF
Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout
Data availability
We accessed open data from the World Bank on countries’ categorization by income ( https://datahelpdesk.worldbank.org/knowledgebase/articles/906519-world-…), national CO2 emissions ( https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EN.ATM.CO2E.PC) and number of scientific and technical journal articles by country ( https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/IP.JRN.ARTC.SC). The Freedom in the World Index by Freedom House can be accessed at https://freedomhouse.org/sites/default/files/2024-02/All_data_FIW_2013-…. To create the map, an open-access shapefile generated by the Center for Spatial Analysis and Geovisualization (RIATE) was used ( https://github.com/riatelab). Characteristics of the general COP24 population were extracted from the list of participants accessible on the UNFCCC website ( https://unfccc.int/documents/187488). The source data generated from surveys with the COP24 delegates are available via GitHub at https://github.com/max-burger/delegates. To safeguard privacy, any data that might compromise anonymity have been removed. This concerns the variables age, gender, home country and country-level data allowing inferences on the country of origin.
Code availability
The analysis files are available via GitHub at https://github.com/max-burger/delegates.
1.
Rogelj, J. et al. Paris Agreement climate proposals need a boost to keep warming well below 2 °C. Nature 534, 631–639 (2016).
2.
Meadows, D. H. Thinking in Systems: A Primer (Chelsea Green Publishing, 2008).
3.
Abson, D. J. et al. Leverage points for sustainability transformation. Ambio 46, 30–39 (2017).
4.
Reiner, D. M. Learning through a portfolio of carbon capture and storage demonstration projects. Nat. Energy 1, 15011 (2016).
5.
Lamb, W. F. et al. Discourses of climate delay. Glob. Sustain. 3, e17 (2020).
6.
Gardezi, M. & Arbuckle, J. G. Techno-optimism and farmers’ attitudes toward climate change adaptation. Environ. Behav. 52, 82–105 (2020).
7.
Campbell-Arvai, V., Hart, P. S., Raimi, K. T. & Wolske, K. S. The influence of learning about carbon dioxide removal (CDR) on support for mitigation policies. Clim. Change 143, 321–336 (2017).
8.
Dannenberg, A. & Zitzelsberger, S. Climate experts’ views on geoengineering depend on their beliefs about climate change impacts. Nat. Clim. Change 9, 769–775 (2019).
9.
Victor, D. G., Lumkowsky, M. & Dannenberg, A. Determining the credibility of commitments in international climate policy. Nat. Clim. Change 12, 793–800 (2022).
10.
Rennert, K. et al. Comprehensive evidence implies a higher social cost of CO2. Nature 610, 687–692 (2022).
11.
Stiglitz, J. & Stern, N. Report of the High-Level Commission on Carbon Prices (World Bank, 2017).
12.
European Commission. A Clean Planet for All. A European Strategic Long-Term Vision for a Prosperous, Modern, Competitive and Climate Neutral Economy (2018).
13.
Alan, S., Boneva, T. & Ertac, S. Ever failed, try again, succeed better: results from a randomized educational intervention on grit. J. Econ. 134, 1121–1162 (2019).
14.
Yeager, D. S. et al. A national experiment reveals where a growth mindset improves achievement. Nature 573, 364–369 (2019).
15.
Global Witness Annual Report 2022: Rising to the Challenge of a World in Crisis. Dismantling the Power of Polluters, Defending the Power of People (Global Witness, 2023).
16.
Megura, M. & Gunderson, R. Better poison is the cure? Critically examining fossil fuel companies, climate change framing, and corporate sustainability reports. Energy Res. Soc. Sci. 85, 102388 (2022).
17.
United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Secretariat. List of participants, FCCC/CP/2018/INF.3;
https://unfccc.int/documents/187488(2018).
Acknowledgements
We thank M. Mayer for the early contribution to this project. We thank T. Falk, B. Hayo, A. Korzhenevych, M. Mayer, M. Orsich, C. Schwirplies, I. Steimanis and B. Sturm as well as participants of the Symposium on Markets and Sustainability in Amsterdam for their valuable feedback on the paper. The survey was part of the research project ‘Incentives, Fairness and Compliance in International Environmental Agreements’ (InFairCom), funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (grant number 01LA1825D). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish or preparation of the paper.
Ethics declarations
Competing interests
The authors declare no competing interests.
Peer review
Peer review information
Nature Sustainability thanks the anonymous reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.
Additional information
Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Supplementary information
Supplementary Information
Supplementary Figs. 1–5, Supplementary Tables 1–16, Supplementary Discussion of Robustness Tests and Study Materials.
Rights and permissions
Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.
About this article
Cite this article
Burger, M.N., Mahabadi, D. & Vollan, B. Technology-minded climate delegates support less stringent climate policies. Nat Sustain (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-024-01434-3
-
Received:
-
Accepted:
-
Published:
-
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-024-01434-3
Related Knowledge Center: Climate economics
Climate change is now a driver of the world’s economy. The impact is profound:
- Catastrophic weather events — hurricanes, floods, droughts, high temperatures — are more frequent and more extreme. The cost can be measured in both the initial damage caused and the longer-term impact on the economy.
- Vulnerable communities are increasing climate-related investments, hardening infrastructure and taking other protective measures.
- Investment in carbon capture and storage technologies is increasingly rapidly.
- Governments are making investments and crafting regulations to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.
On top of all of this is the cost of uncertainty. As the Fourth National Climate Assessment, released in 2018 by the U.S. Global Change Research Program, says, “The assumption that current and future climate conditions will resemble the recent past is no longer valid.”