Climate change is an ongoing and escalating public health emergency. It may reverse decades of health progress, and threatens the health and wellbeing of billions of people through extreme weather events, displacement, food insecurity, pathogenic diseases, societal destabilisation, and armed conflict. Climate change dwarfs all other challenges studied by behavioural scientists. The greenhouse gas emissions driving climate change disproportionately originate from the actions of wealthy populations in the Global North and are tied to excessive energy use and overconsumption driven by the pursuit of economic growth. Addressing this crisis requires significant systems transformations and individual behaviour change. Most of these changes will benefit not only the stability of the climate but will yield significant public health co-benefits. Because of their unique expertise and skills, behavioural scientists are urgently needed to drive these societal transformations. I will propose specific ways in which behavioural scientists at all career stages can contribute to this challenge, and will illustrate this with recent research from my lab on behaviour change in the context of food system transformations, on energy and resource use, and on mental health. I will also discuss behaviour change among behavioural scientists in our roles in teaching, policy advocacy, within organisations, and as private citizens. As behavioural scientists, we cannot sit back and leave climate change to climate scientists. Climate change is a health emergency that results from human behaviour; hence it is in our power and responsibility to address it.

1. Behaviour Change in the
Climate Emergency
Dr Esther K. Papies, University of Glasgow
UKSBM 2024, Glasgow

3. Ripple et al., 2023

4. Global-tipping-points.org

5. Not only climate change
Richardson, K., Steffen, W., Lucht, W.,
Bendtsen, J., Cornell, S. E., Donges,
J. F., Drüke, M., Fetzer, I., Bala, G.,
von Bloh, W., Feulner, G., Fiedler, S.,
Gerten, D., Gleeson, T., Hofmann, M.,
Huiskamp, W., Kummu, M., Mohan,
C., Nogués-Bravo, D., … Rockström,
J. (2023). Earth beyond six of nine
planetary boundaries. Science
Advances, 9(37), eadh2458.
https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.adh2458

8. Overview
 Climate change is a health emergency
 Immediate and root causes of climate change
 Health and social justice implications of addressing climate change
 Our roles in research, teaching, organisations, policy advocacy, and
private life.
 What does “behaviour change” mean in the climate emergency?
Papies, E. K., Nielsen, K. S., & Soares,
V. A. (2024). Health psychology and
climate change: Time to address
humanity’s most existential crisis.
Health Psychology Review, 0(0), 1–31.
https://doi.org/10.1080/17437199.2024
.2309242
Today’s slides

9. WHO: “Climate change
presents a fundamental threat
to human health. It affects the
physical environment as well
as all aspects of both natural
and human systems –
including social and economic
conditions and the functioning
of health systems. It is
therefore a threat multiplier,
undermining and potentially
reversing decades of health
progress.”
Climate change is a health emergency

10. “Cascading risks” for next 20-30 years
Quiggin et al., 2021

11. Extraction and use of fossil fuels; food system
Immediate causes of climate change

14. MRC/CSO Social and Public Health Sciences Unit, University of Glasgow glasgow.ac.uk/sphsu

15. MRC/CSO Social and Public Health Sciences Unit, University of Glasgow glasgow.ac.uk/sphsu

16. Focus on economic growth, rather than wellbeing or planetary health
Root causes of climate change
UNEP, 2024

17. Plant-rich diets
Active travel
Well-insulated buildings
Degrowth policies:
• Expand universal public goods and
services (health, education,
transport, housing)
• 4-day work week
• Job guarantee and living wage
• Scaling down “socially less
necessary” production (private jets,
SUVs, planned obsolescence, …)
Health and social co-benefits

18. Over to us

20. 1. Research
2. Teaching
3. Organisational transformations
4. Policy advocacy
5. Private life
Opportunities for
behavioural
scientists

22. 1/5: Addressing the emergency in research

23. https://www.nationalfoodstrategy.org/
2050: 50% more needed, but
30% yield loss
Quiggin et al., 2021
Jones, A., et al., (2023). Scoping Potential Routes to UK Civil Unrest via
the Food System: Results of a Structured Expert Elicitation. Sustainability,
15(20).

24. Stewart et al., 2023
UK Diet composition in comparison to Planetary Health diet (dashed line; 2017)
WWF, 2023

25. Research examples
 How can the mainstream transition to more plant-based diets be
facilitated?
 How is plant-based food presented, and can this be improved to
increase its appeal across diets? (Farrar, Davis)
 What is the role of food-based dietary guidelines in the protein
transition? (Sinclair)
 What are students’ emotional experiences with climate change and
implications for universities? (Hill-Harding)
 How do high SES individuals in the UK envision the transition to a
low-carbon future?

26. Research priorities
 Interdisciplinary
 High-impact groups and behaviours
 Not recycling
 Also behaviours that are harder to measure
 Feasibility / behavioural plasticity (Stern et al., 2023)
 Implementation – help make change happen.
 Evidence synthesis
 Let the real-world problem guide you – not theories, or careers.

27. Privilege
Reproduced under CC-BY Attribution 4.0 International from Elsherif, M. M., Middleton, S. L., Phan, J. M., Azevedo, F., Iley,
B. J., Grose-Hodge, M., Tyler, S., Kapp, S. K., Gourdon-Kanhukamwe, A., Grafton-Clarke, D., Yeung, S. K., Shaw, J. J.,
Hartmann, H., & Dokovova, M. (2022). Bridging Neurodiversity and Open Scholarship: How Shared Values Can Guide Best
Practices for Research Integrity, Social Justice, and Principled Education. MetaArXiv https://doi.org/10.31222/osf.io/k7a9p

28. • Do we talk with our students about climate
change? Or are we perpetuating a “culture of
uncare”?
• Does our teaching prepare our students for the
world they will live in?
• “How can we continue with teaching as usual
when — unless we act, swiftly and with resolve
— enormous disruption and suffering lies
ahead? Universities, which are places that
should prepare students to navigate the world
ahead, are failing to do so.” (Dablander, 2023)
• Hill-Harding et al. (2024): 588 / 869 students at
University of Glasgow want more climate
change coverage in teaching
2/5: Teaching
Hickmann et al., 2021

29.  Check (and ensure) your organization has
fully divested from fossil fuels.
 Create or change business travel policy.
 Where are the incentives for international air
travel (e.g., promotions criteria)?
 Develop new ways of international
conferencing
 Check (and ensure) your organization is on
track with an ambitious decarbonization plan.
 Decarbonize (energy-intense) research.
 Help your organization go plant-based.
 Bring climate and health into every decision
 Find allies, join the students, build a
movement.
3/5: Organisational transformations
www.atmosfair.de/en
www.travelandclimate.org

30. Ensure climate and health considerations feature in
policy on:
• Buildings, food, and transport
• Energy: phasing out fossil fuels
• Economy: question the growth imperative
• Education: for new “social imaginaries” (Stoddard et
al., 2021)
Navigating industry influence and vested interests
4/5: Policy advocacy

31. 5/5: Private life – Talk, march, and model
Buildings, food, transport; banking.
But: not just consumer behaviour change.
Sparkman et al., 2022
Andre et al., 2024

32. Which behaviours?
(over)consumption of energy and materials
Whose behaviours?
High-SES individuals, policy makers, industry stakeholders
Our behaviours: in research, teaching, organisations, policy advocacy, and private life.
Create change together – create resonance, not resistance.
Behaviour change to create systems change – fuelled by knowing that a better world is
possible.
Behaviour Change in the Climate Emergency

33. Work out what you can contribute.
What next?
Diagram: Ayana Elizabeth Johnson

34. MRC/CSO Social and Public Health Sciences Unit, University of Glasgow
Thank you
@theSPHSU glasgow.ac.uk/sphsu
@EstherPapies
@HealthyCogLab
Esther.Papies@glasgow.ac.uk
Papies, E. K., Nielsen, K. S., & Soares, V. A.
(2024). Health psychology and climate
change: Time to address humanity’s most
existential crisis. Health Psychology Review,
0(0), 1–31.
https://doi.org/10.1080/17437199.2024.2309
242
Today’s slides