Political feasibility constraints global mitigation pathways

Political feasibility constraints global mitigation pathways | Research Square window.SnipcartSettings = { analytics: { enabled: false } }; (function() { var accessVector = localStorage.getItem('access_vector') || ''; window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; if (accessVector) { window.dataLayer.push({ user: { profile: { profileInfo: { snid: accessVector } } } }); } })(); (function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start':new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src='https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);})(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-K279D39R'); Browse Preprints In Review Journals COVID-19 Preprints AJE Video Bytes Research Tools Research Promotion AJE Professional Editing AJE Rubriq About Preprint Platform In Review Editorial Policies Our Team Advisory Board Help Center Sign In Submit a Preprint Cite Share Download PDF Article Political feasibility constraints global mitigation pathways Adrien Poujon, Giacomo Marangoni, Tatiana Filatova, Jan Kwakkel This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-9170039/v1 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Under Review Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Abstract Climate policy implementation, often approached top-down, repeatedly misses targets and lacks public support. Classical integrated assessment models (IAMs) cannot explain this mitigation gap, as they treat political factors as fixed, ignoring the dimension of political feasibility. We address this by coupling a multi-regional IAM with an agent-based model (ABM) of 57 regions, each with a government and 1,000 households, to model mitigation pathways from 2015 to 2100. Governments balance international negotiations and domestic pressures from diverse households voting based on attitudes of climate concern, time preferences, and global solidarity. Our results show that meeting Paris targets requires extreme combinations of attitudes. Regional climate vulnerability and within-region attitude heterogeneity render these combinations rare. Early opposition creates path dependencies that lock regions into low-ambition trajectories, even as climate change becomes more apparent. These findings suggest that opinion shifts driven solely by climate experience are insufficient to garner social acceptance for ambitious goals. Earth and environmental sciences/Environmental social sciences/Climate-change mitigation Earth and environmental sciences/Environmental social sciences/Environmental economics Earth and environmental sciences/Environmental social sciences/Climate-change policy Climate change mitigation public support IAM ABM Full Text Additional Declarations There is NO Competing Interest. Cite Share Download PDF Status: Under Review Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Research Square lets you share your work early, gain feedback from the community, and start making changes to your manuscript prior to peer review in a journal. As a division of Research Square Company, we’re committed to making research communication faster, fairer, and more useful. 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Also discoverable on Platform About Our Team In Review Editorial Policies Advisory Board Help Center Resources Author Services Accessibility API Access RSS feed Manage Cookie Preferences © Research Square 2026 | ISSN 2693-5015 (online) Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information {"props":{"pageProps":{"initialData":{"identity":"rs-9170039","acceptedTermsAndConditions":true,"allowDirectSubmit":false,"archivedVersions":[],"articleType":"Article","associatedPublications":[],"authors":[{"id":608956165,"identity":"0546c374-dded-43a0-b317-4ef3d0d48438","order_by":0,"name":"Adrien Poujon","email":"data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAZAAAAAyAQMAAABI0h/eAAAABlBMVEX///8AAABVwtN+AAAACXBIWXMAAA7EAAAOxAGVKw4bAAAA3klEQVRIiWNgGAWjYJACAzB5gLHxAZDi4SNFSzOIwcNGvF0HGNgkQDRBLebsPQYFH3cwyPPdPtxW+TXHToaNgfnhoxt4tFj2nDEwnHmGwXDmucS227LbkoEOYzM2zsHnjxs5Bsa8bQyMG84wtt2W3MYM1MLDJk2MFnuQlmLJbfXEa0kEaWH8uO0wYS2WPccKDGe2SSTPPMPYLM247TgPGzMBv5izN28z+NhmY9t3hv3hx5/bqu352ZsfPsbrMGBEADE4RhiYecAkHuVQLcwPYBzGHwRUj4JRMApGwcgEAGncRKO5JSuSAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC","orcid":"https://orcid.org/0009-0006-8821-8451","institution":"Technische Universiteit Delft","correspondingAuthor":true,"prefix":"","firstName":"Adrien","middleName":"","lastName":"Poujon","suffix":""},{"id":608956166,"identity":"6bbd673c-dad1-4ced-a5e0-06e0839f6f19","order_by":1,"name":"Giacomo Marangoni","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"TU Delft","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Giacomo","middleName":"","lastName":"Marangoni","suffix":""},{"id":608956167,"identity":"3215b8ec-cb5d-4ac3-a607-6144ab0c1975","order_by":2,"name":"Tatiana Filatova","email":"","orcid":"https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3546-6930","institution":"Delft University of Technology","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Tatiana","middleName":"","lastName":"Filatova","suffix":""},{"id":608956168,"identity":"8f562e52-aa94-492b-b4ec-bce898e29da1","order_by":3,"name":"Jan Kwakkel","email":"","orcid":"https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9447-2954","institution":"Delft University of Technology","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Jan","middleName":"","lastName":"Kwakkel","suffix":""}],"badges":[],"createdAt":"2026-03-19 13:27:19","currentVersionCode":1,"declarations":"","doi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-9170039/v1","doiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-9170039/v1","draftVersion":[],"editorialEvents":[],"editorialNote":"","failedWorkflow":false,"files":[{"id":105339967,"identity":"5f031d1f-2be2-441c-ae6c-49763beff74c","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2026-03-25 02:25:34","extension":"pdf","order_by":1,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"manuscript-pdf","size":3028998,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"Article File","description":"","filename":"article19032026cleaned.pdf","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-9170039/v1_covered_a59255d0-2dde-401e-a7f0-43f4cf87ad14.pdf"}],"financialInterests":"There is \u003cb\u003eNO\u003c/b\u003e Competing Interest.","formattedTitle":"Political feasibility constraints global mitigation pathways","fulltext":[],"fulltextSource":"","fullText":"","funders":[],"hasAdminPriorityOnWorkflow":false,"hasManuscriptDocX":false,"hasOptedInToPreprint":true,"hasPassedJournalQc":"","hasAnyPriority":true,"hideJournal":false,"highlight":"","institution":"","isAcceptedByJournal":false,"isAuthorSuppliedPdf":true,"isDeskRejected":"","isHiddenFromSearch":false,"isInQc":false,"isInWorkflow":false,"isPdf":true,"isPdfUpToDate":true,"isWithdrawnOrRetracted":false,"journal":{"display":true,"email":"[email protected]","identity":"nature-portfolio","isNatureJournal":true,"hasQc":false,"allowDirectSubmit":false,"externalIdentity":"","sideBox":"","snPcode":"","submissionUrl":"","title":"Nature Portfolio","twitterHandle":"","acdcEnabled":false,"dfaEnabled":false,"editorialSystem":"ejp","reportingPortfolio":"","inReviewEnabled":true,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":false},"keywords":"Climate change, mitigation, public support, IAM, ABM","lastPublishedDoi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-9170039/v1","lastPublishedDoiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-9170039/v1","license":{"name":"CC BY 4.0","url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"},"manuscriptAbstract":"Climate policy implementation, often approached top-down, repeatedly misses targets and lacks public support. 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