Improving Climate Change Mitigation Analysis: A Framework for Examining Feasibility

Abstract

Limiting global warming to 2 C or less compared with pre-industrial temperatures will require unprecedented rates of decarbonization globally. The scale and scope of transformational change required across sectors and actors in society raises critical questions of feasibility. Much of the literature on mitigation pathways addresses technological and economic aspects of feasibility, but overlooks the behavioral, cultural, and social factors that affect theoretical and practical mitigation pathways. We present a tripartite framework that ''unpacks'' the concept of mitigation pathways by distinguishing three factors that together determine actual mitigation: technical potential, initiative feasibility, and behavioral plasticity. The framework aims to integrate and streamline heterogeneous disciplinary research traditions toward a more comprehensive and transparent approach that will facilitate learning across disciplines and enable mitigation pathways to more fully reflect available knowledge. We offer three suggestions for integrating the tripartite framework into current research on climate change mitigation.

The role of high-socioeconomic-status people in locking in or rapidly reducing energy-driven greenhouse gas emissions

“…Actual GHG emissions reductions achieved through changes in consumption depend on the product of the technical potential of a change and behavioural plasticity 2, 26 . The technical potential of actions, including adoption of a technology, refers to the emissions reductions that would be achieved if everyone took that action.…”

Agriculture's Contribution to Climate Change and Role in Mitigation Is Distinct From Predominantly Fossil CO2-Emitting Sectors

“…Emission reduction pathways intended to answer the questions posed above are primarily generated and/or assessed using climate-economic integrated assessment models (IAMs), but these have been heavily criticized for their opacity (Robertson, 2020). It also been argued that mitigation assessments have emphasized technological and economic feasibility but done little to address behavioral, cultural, or social plausibility, with dietary choices noted as a key example (Nielsen et al, 2020). We are currently failing to implement the policy tools that modeled pathways use to bring down agricultural emissions (Leahy et al, 2020).…”

Biodiversity conservation as a promising frontier for behavioural science

“…Instead, it will often be necessary to use evidence from interventions targeting comparable behaviours relating to other actors, contexts or domains until more direct data become available 87 . Although considerations of technical potential and behavioural plasticity should guide the selection of behaviours to study and intervene against, we note that additional considerations may become pertinent when selecting interventions for implementation (for example, feasibility, stakeholder support and costs) [91][92][93] .…”

“…The first research question deals with prioritization. As with climate change interventions, there is a clear need for a more systematic understanding of the technical potential of different behaviour changes: which ones, if delivered, would be most likely to reduce a threat and thereby enhance the status of the conservation target, taking into account other threats it faces 80,91 ? Given the focus of many recent environmental interventions on appealing, tractable but relatively low-impact behaviour changes (for example, eating more locally grown food or avoiding plastic drinking straws), such prioritization is badly needed 88,90 .…”

“…The remaining research questions are all aimed at improving our understanding of the plasticity of priority behaviours (that is, those with high technical potential to improve biodiversity outcomes 91 ). Our second suggested question is which interventions work best to alter priority behaviours, and how does this vary across contexts?…”