Understanding and Preventing Climate Breakdown: A Guide for Social and Behavioral Scientists

Despite decades of scientific warnings, there is insufficient action to prevent climate breakdown. This is true at the government and corporate level, where we see the expansion of fossil fuel infrastructure, and at the individual level, where only a small proportion of the general public and the wider academic community engage in climate advocacy or activism. The latter is starting to change. Indeed, the enormous dangers ahead, coupled with the inadequacy of the political response, call for a reevaluation of the role of scientists and academics on a planet in crisis. In this paper, I (a) provide a concise assessment of our current predicament, (b) detail the ways in which both current as well as aspirational climate policy and mitigation pathways are insufficient to prevent climate breakdown, (c) sketch what climate policy commensurate with the scale of the challenge might look like, and (d) suggest ways in which scientists and academics in general, and social and behavioral scientists in particular, can get (more) involved to help secure a livable and sustainable future for all.