<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);" class=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" class=""><span style="text-decoration: underline; -webkit-font-kerning: none; color: rgb(69, 0, 167); -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(69, 0, 167);" class=""><a href="https://link.springer.com/journal/10584" class="">Climatic Change</a></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;" class=""> June 2019, Volume 154, <a href="https://link.springer.com/journal/10584/154/3/page/1" class=""><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; color: rgb(69, 0, 167); -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(69, 0, 167);" class="">Issue 3–4</span></a>, pp 453–460| </span></span></div><p style="margin: 0px 0px 8px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(51, 51, 51);" class=""><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" class=""><b class="">Investing into climate change mitigation despite the risk of failure</b></span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 8px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(51, 51, 51);" class=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" class=""><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; -webkit-font-kerning: none;" class="">Mike Farjam</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; -webkit-font-kerning: none; color: rgb(69, 0, 167); -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(69, 0, 167);" class=""> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; -webkit-font-kerning: none;" class="">Olexandr Nikolaychuk Giangiacomo Bravo</span></span></p><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(51, 51, 51);" class=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" class=""><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; -webkit-font-kerning: none;" class=""><b class="">Abstract</b> [ </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;" class=""><b class="">Open Access </b><font color="#c74f04" class="">]</font></span></span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 238);" class=""><span style="text-decoration: underline; -webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" class=""><a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10584-019-02454-1" class="">https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10584-019-02454-1</a></span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); min-height: 14px;" class=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class=""></span><br class=""></span></div><p style="margin: 0px 0px 14.4px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);" class=""><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" class="">In order to convince both policy makers and the general public to engage in climate change mitigation activities, it is </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: rgb(255, 251, 0);" class="">crucial to communicate the inherent risks </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" class="">in an effective way. Due to the complexity of the system, mitigation activities </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: rgb(255, 251, 0);" class="">cannot completely rule out the possibility of the climate reaching a dangerous tipping point but can only reduce it to some unavoidable <i class="">residual risk</i> level.</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" class=""> We present an online experiment based on a sample of US citizens and designed to improve our understanding of how the presence of such residual risk affects the willingness to invest into climate change mitigation. We found that, far from reducing them, the presence of residual risk actually increases investments into mitigation activities. This result suggests that scientists and policy makers should consider being more transparent about communicating the residual risks entailed by such initiatives.</span></p><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(51, 51, 51);" class=""><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" class=""><b class="">Introduction</b></span></div><p style="margin: 0px 0px 20.4px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(51, 51, 51);" class=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">Public support and design of climate policies is strongly affected by how individuals and organizations perceive the associated costs and risks (IPCC <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10584-019-02454-1#CR14" class=""><span style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; -webkit-font-kerning: none; color: rgb(69, 0, 167); -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(69, 0, 167);" class="">2014</span></a>; Sterman <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10584-019-02454-1#CR28" class=""><span style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; -webkit-font-kerning: none; color: rgb(69, 0, 167); -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(69, 0, 167);" class="">2008</span></a>). Due to the complexity of the system, current mitigation activities cannot completely rule out the possibility of the climate reaching a dangerous tipping point but can only reduce it to some unavoidable <i class="">residual risk</i> level (Holden et al. <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10584-019-02454-1#CR10" class=""><span style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; -webkit-font-kerning: none; color: rgb(69, 0, 167); -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(69, 0, 167);" class="">2018</span></a>; Steffen et al. <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10584-019-02454-1#CR27" class=""><span style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; -webkit-font-kerning: none; color: rgb(69, 0, 167); -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(69, 0, 167);" class="">2018</span></a>; Lenton <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10584-019-02454-1#CR18" class=""><span style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; -webkit-font-kerning: none; color: rgb(69, 0, 167); -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(69, 0, 167);" class="">2011</span></a>). Effective communication of both mitigation initiatives and of risks linked to various degrees of the temperature increase above the pre-industrial level therefore presents a crucial challenge for scientists and policy makers (Morgan et al. <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10584-019-02454-1#CR21" class=""><span style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; -webkit-font-kerning: none; color: rgb(69, 0, 167); -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(69, 0, 167);" class="">2002</span></a>), as recently highlighted by the IPCC report of the consequences of a “limited” global warming of 1.5 </span><span style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; -webkit-font-kerning: none;" class="">∘</span><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">C above the pre-industrial level (IPCC <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10584-019-02454-1#CR15" class=""><span style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; -webkit-font-kerning: none; color: rgb(69, 0, 167); -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(69, 0, 167);" class="">2018</span></a>). In addition, mitigation behaviour is affected by the information available as well as by the framing of the problem channelled trough traditional and social media (Boykoff <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10584-019-02454-1#CR2" class=""><span style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; -webkit-font-kerning: none; color: rgb(69, 0, 167); -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(69, 0, 167);" class="">2011</span></a>; Morton et al. <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10584-019-02454-1#CR22" class=""><span style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; -webkit-font-kerning: none; color: rgb(69, 0, 167); -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(69, 0, 167);" class="">2011</span></a>).</span></span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 20.4px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(51, 51, 51);" class=""><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;" class=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" class="">Several experimental papers studied how risk and ambiguity affect the willingness to contribute in games modelling collective action as a means to solve climate dilemmas, generally reporting higher contributions when the risk of disastrous losses increased (Milinski et al. </span><a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10584-019-02454-1#CR20" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" class=""><span style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; -webkit-font-kerning: none; color: rgb(69, 0, 167); -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(69, 0, 167);" class="">2008</span></a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" class="">; Barrett and Dannenberg </span><a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10584-019-02454-1#CR1" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" class=""><span style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; -webkit-font-kerning: none; color: rgb(69, 0, 167); -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(69, 0, 167);" class="">2014</span></a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" class="">; Tavoni et al. </span><a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10584-019-02454-1#CR30" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" class=""><span style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; -webkit-font-kerning: none; color: rgb(69, 0, 167); -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(69, 0, 167);" class="">2011</span></a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" class="">). </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 251, 0);" class="">However, those works only considered the risk linked to the failure of preventing further climate change, without considering that humanity would suffer certain consequences of climate change even in the best-case scenario</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" class=""> of the international collaboration succeeding in limiting global warming to around 1.5 </span></span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; -webkit-font-kerning: none;" class="">∘</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); -webkit-font-kerning: none;" class="">C (IPCC <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10584-019-02454-1#CR15" class=""><span style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; -webkit-font-kerning: none; color: rgb(69, 0, 167); -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(69, 0, 167);" class="">2018</span></a>). Farjam et al. (<a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10584-019-02454-1#CR7" class=""><span style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; -webkit-font-kerning: none; color: rgb(69, 0, 167); -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(69, 0, 167);" class="">2018</span></a>) distinguished between an <i class="">a priori</i> and a <i class="">residual</i> risk, the former referring to the consequences of an unsuccessful collective action (e.g., not limiting the increase of the temperature to 1.5–2 </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; -webkit-font-kerning: none;" class="">∘</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); -webkit-font-kerning: none;" class="">C above pre-industrial levels, as stated by the 2009 Paris Agreement), the latter referring to the risk that cannot be ruled out even in case of a successful collective action (e.g., due to the climate inertia). It is also important to note that the residual risk discussed here is different from what is sometimes referred to as <i class="">threshold ambiguity</i>, i.e., what level of greenhouse gases concentration is going to trigger positive feedback loops leading to a self-sustaining climate change (Holden et al. <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10584-019-02454-1#CR10" class=""><span style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; -webkit-font-kerning: none; color: rgb(69, 0, 167); -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(69, 0, 167);" class="">2018</span></a>; Stocker <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10584-019-02454-1#CR29" class=""><span style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; -webkit-font-kerning: none; color: rgb(69, 0, 167); -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(69, 0, 167);" class="">2013</span></a>). Under threshold ambiguity, it is possible for an optimistic decision-maker to expect the required level of effort to be lower than under certainty. Indeed, previous experimental research found that threshold ambiguity reduced contributions to climate change mitigation relative to the certainty condition (Barrett and Dannenberg <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10584-019-02454-1#CR1" class=""><span style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; -webkit-font-kerning: none; color: rgb(69, 0, 167); -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(69, 0, 167);" class="">2014</span></a>; Dannenberg et al. <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10584-019-02454-1#CR6" class=""><span style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; -webkit-font-kerning: none; color: rgb(69, 0, 167); -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(69, 0, 167);" class="">2015</span></a>). On the other hand, a scenario with residual risk compared with one without does not allow for such optimism, which makes it rational to perceive the former as more threatening. In line with this logic, Farjam et al. (<a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10584-019-02454-1#CR7" class=""><span style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; -webkit-font-kerning: none; color: rgb(69, 0, 167); -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(69, 0, 167);" class="">2018</span></a>) showed that residual risk in the context of climate change mitigation activities could actually increase contributions in a <i class="">collective-risk social dilemma</i> (CRSD) game (Milinski et al. <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10584-019-02454-1#CR20" class=""><span style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; -webkit-font-kerning: none; color: rgb(69, 0, 167); -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(69, 0, 167);" class="">2008</span></a>) where the participants had the choice either to keep their endowment for themselves or to contribute part of it to a common “climate account.” If after 10 rounds the total group contribution was lower than a predefined (and known) threshold, the group faced the (<i class="">a priori</i>) risk of a large monetary loss, emulating the consequences of climate change. The surprising, albeit preliminary result of their study was that, everything else being equal, the participants generally invested more and reached the threshold more frequently when a low but positive level of <i class="">residual risk</i> was present in the game (Farjam et al. <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10584-019-02454-1#CR7" class=""><span style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; -webkit-font-kerning: none; color: rgb(69, 0, 167); -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(69, 0, 167);" class="">2018</span></a>).</span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 20.4px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(51, 51, 51);" class=""><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" class="">In other words, we found evidence that a moderate level of residual does not reduce the willingness to invest in climate change mitigation but actually may increase it. The main goal of the current work was to validate and extend this result to a broader range of levels of residual risk, all using a larger and more representative pool of participants. This also enabled us to investigate if the relationship between the level of residual risk and individual contributions to the climate account is actually linear. Taking into account both the findings in Farjam et al. (<a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10584-019-02454-1#CR7" class=""><span style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; -webkit-font-kerning: none; color: rgb(69, 0, 167); -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(69, 0, 167);" class="">2018</span></a>) and the relation between the various levels of <i class="">a priori</i> and residual risk, we expected an inverted U-shaped relationship between the level of residual risk and contributions, i.e., the highest level of contributions would be attained at intermediate levels of residual risk. If residual risk was negligible, the participants would essentially be in a situation where only <i class="">a priori</i> risk mattered whereas</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; background-color: rgb(255, 251, 0);" class=""> if residual risk was too high, the improvement over the <i class="">a priori </i>risk scenario would become insufficient to motivate the contributions.</span></p><div style="margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); min-height: 20px;" class=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class=""></span>Access to pdf of full article here</span></div><div class="">
<div style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none;" class=""><span class="" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; margin: 0px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 238);" class=""><span style="text-decoration: underline; -webkit-font-kerning: none;" class=""><a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10584-019-02454-1" class="">https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10584-019-02454-1</a></span></div><div class=""><br class=""></div>==--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------== </span></div><div style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none;" class=""><span class="" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><br class=""></span></div><div style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none;" class=""><span class="" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“We don’t need to guard [ <span class="">i.e., defend/protect ourselves </span>] against depression, against anger, against despair when it comes to climate change.”<br class=""><br class=""><a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2017/07/we_are_not_alarmed_enough_about_climate_change.html" class="">http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2017/07/we_are_not_alarmed_enough_about_climate_change.html</a></span></div><div style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none;" class=""><span class="" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><br class=""></span></div><div style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none;" class=""><span class="" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><br class=""></span></div><div style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none;" class=""><span class="" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">==——————-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------—==</span></div><div style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none;" class=""><span class="" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><br class=""></span></div><div style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none;" class=""><span class="" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Excerpt: "Environmental psychologist Susi Moser, also talks about the importance of acknowledging our underlying fears and distress about climate change as an important coping strategy. Moser (2012) calls it ‘the bravest thing’ – getting real, accepting reality without illusions, and accepting that better tomorrows may not come.”<br class=""><br class=""><a href="https://www.isthishowyoufeel.com/blog/how-do-people-cope-with-feelings-about-climate-change-so-that-they-stay-engaged-and-take-action" class="">https://www.isthishowyoufeel.com/blog/how-do-people-cope-with-feelings-about-climate-change-so-that-they-stay-engaged-and-take-action</a><br class=""><br class=""> </span></div><div style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none;" class=""><span class="" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><br class=""></span></div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" class=""><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><br class="Apple-interchange-newline">
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