The ongoing heatwave in Europe shows us that we need climate action now more than ever. The good news is that each of us has the agency to do something in our lives. I spoke with @charlotte-kukowski.bsky.social about a new climate action framework she and her colleagues have developed.

It is obviously true that systemic change is what matters. The big question is whether individual or social change can help bring that about. I think there are good arguments for that :) interesting article: bsky.app/profile/kris...

In my work, I often come across the "individual" vs "system" level change debate. Here we introduce the *A-frame*. We argue that social change arises from individuals’ Agency within their many roles in societal systems, & that this agency should be leveraged. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

1/ The sustainability transition doesn’t just advance from the top down and the bottom up – change also happens in the middle, and that’s where most of us can make a real difference Quick thread on a great new paper showing how *everyone* has an influential role to play 🧵

#AGW #mitigation Famous abstract: "No one is too small to make a difference." (Gift link to the paper in the 🧵)

This sounds like an interesting and important article about agency for climate change mitigation, which I look forward to reading.

The paper is excellent, thank you for providing access to it. "...treating these as mutually exclusive is conceptually and strategically flawed. Individuals act within systems, and systems are shaped and sustained by individual and collective behaviour." Exactly. bsky.app/profile/kris...

🌍 Feeling paralyzed about climate action? We just published an article in @theconversation.com that talks about how to find your biggest potential climate impact - which may well be greater than you think. 💪 Our framework walks you through the process step-by-step: (1/n)

This feels like it could potentially be a useful framework for thinking about system change for other types of things besides climate change

“Rather than treating individual and system change as opposing pathways, we focus on how people can exercise agency through the social roles they occupy.” 👏

It was always a false binary. Always glad to see it recognized as such.

🚨Fed up with the "individual vs. system change" debate?🚨 We've got you covered. 🙌 In our new paper in Nature Climate Change, we endeavour to move beyond that binary by introducing the agency frame (a-frame), a practical lens for identifying and intervening on high-impact climate behaviours. (1/n)

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Excellent work from @charlotte-kukowski.bsky.social [email protected]@[email protected] & others. I think they're on the money regarding how some people are better placed to shape society, but everyone has at least some agency to shape behaviour 1/n

Climate action debates often get stuck on the same question: is change about individual behavior or systems? This paper argues that is the wrong split. People act inside systems, but their actions also help maintain, reshape, or challenge those systems. 🧪 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

"People with higher socioeconomic status often have far greater opportunities to influence emissions… ...Nonetheless, most people probably have more personal climate agency than they recognize."

It's not about invidual vs system change, bottom up or top down It's about how individuals, depending on their own capacities, context and available levers, can stimulate change in the world around them That's what will cascade up into system change

🔥 Individual or system change?🔥 This debate has been at the center of much of my social media engagement for years (causing a fair bit of frustration). Yet I have never published research directly addressing it. Until now. 🧵 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Pro-environmental behavior is often used as a broad ☂️ term under which different behaviors (e.g., mitigation, conservation, restoration), sustainability approaches (e.g., sufficiency, efficiency), types of behavior, domains (e.g., mobility, energy, food), and their antecedents are summarized.

⭐NEW PAPER ⭐ We collaborated with AWorld, the largest app for personal climate action, to examine behavioral patterns, data quality, and the links between users' actions, carbon footprints and psychological factors. iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1... @fdabl.bsky.social @cameronbrick.bsky.social

Working on climate change often comes with frustration over the lack of progress. But progress is happening, and it’s worth celebrating when it does. One piece of good news from my corner of the world: #Copenhagen has now fully electrified its bus fleet 🙌 🚌 ⚡ www.electrive.com/2026/03/31/c...

🚨✈️ New paper on support for carbon taxation targeting air travel in Denmark 🇩🇰 We ran a discrete choice experiment with oversampling of top-income individuals to examine how policy design, information, and individual characteristics shape support. 🧵 (1/3) papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

🌍 New megastudy on what motivates people to engage in climate advocacy 🥳 We tested 17 theory-driven behavior change interventions to increase public, political, and financial #climate advocacy in the United States (N = 31,324). academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/ar...

New study finds that emphasizing collective efficacy (people's ability to catalyze large-scale change) is very effective in catalyzing behavioural change. As you can see from my pinned post, I'm a big fan of simple messages that can mobilize public support for climate action!

Speaker Spotlight: Kristian Nielsen How do individual behavior change & broader systems change interact? How can behavioral science realize its full potential to address climate change? We're excited to have @kristiansn89.bsky.social help us tackle these questions! ⏳ Apply until Jan 26: acscc.nl

1/ Yes the globally wealthy have outsized emissions, and yes that’s a massive problem But it’s actually only a small part of their devastating influence on the conditions that support life 🧵

4/ In fact, as @kristiansn89.bsky.social, @kimberlynicholas.bsky.social & colleagues show, 'high-socioeconomic-status' people collectively work to prevent serious action on climate in a range of ways both conscious and unconscious www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Noam Chomsky has repeatedly called the U.S. Republican Party the most dangerous organization in the world. It gets harder and harder to disagree. www.bbc.com/news/av/worl...

🔥How can behavioral science contribute more to tackling climate change? This question has been on my mind for years, and I have often written rather critically about the state of behavioral science research (including my own). Here I will share six recommendations🧵 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Adds evidence about the false (in my opinion) dichotomy between support for individual actions and for systems change

What better way to end 2025 than getting our paper published in Global Environmental Change 🥳💚 We studied perceptions of the feasibility of climate-relevant behavior change and how these perceptions connect to income differences and climate policy support. Let me tell you all about it🧵👇

Being serious about planetary boundaries means transforming towards less and slower mobility. This contradicts the current paradigms, making it difficult to gain legitimacy for such policies. Slow mobility also means more active and healthy mobility. High time to link health psychology and mobility.

Vi har i Klima- og Omstillingsrådet en kronik i @altingetdk.bsky.social om, hvorfor Danmark bør arbejde langt mere aktivt med vores forbrugsbaserede klimaaftryk 🇩🇰 Her adresserer vi også den ensporede kritik, som klimaministeren fremfører. @jenslund.bsky.social www.altinget.dk/klima/artike...

You might also be interested to see how technological optimism interacts with support for climate stringency among COP delegates: doi.org/10.1038/s418...

This is the problem with trying to inspire hope using the message "we have the solutions": such a message may inspire the kind of techno-optimism that actually fosters political *dis*engagement. 1/n

Nearly every panel I spoke on this year ended with the same question: "What gives you hope?" My friends, that question expired years ago. (If you need receipts, my book Saving Us is literally a 300-page answer.) The real question is: How are you PRACTICING hope? Because Greta is right ..

⚠️ When “technology will save us” becomes a climate risk! A new paper from great colleagues takes a careful look at techno-optimism — the belief that technology will largely solve climate change — and what it means for real-world climate action. (1/4)👇 osf.io/preprints/ps...

🐕 The climate paradox of having a dog in @grist.org 🐶 The story includes the tale of the wild and misleading media circus that followed one of our recent papers, which @dgoldwert.bsky.social navigated brilliantly! It also features @kimberlynicholas.bsky.social! grist.org/culture/the-...

Politiken dækkede rapporten med en helside af Magnus Bredsdorff, der også bragte gode perspektiver fra @kristiansn89.bsky.social og Peter Møllgaard. politiken.dk/del/GVPnpiAF...

Global Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions rise again in 2024, up 2.3%. This is our collective progress, 10 years after the Paris Agreement. www.unep.org/resources/em... 1/

For at oversætte forskningen til almindeligt dansk: Sorter endeligt dit affald, men tro ikke, at det har nær samme effekt som at skære ned på flyrejserne og de røde bøffer. #dkpol #dkgreen

✈️🥩♻️ How accurately do people perceive the #climate impact of different lifestyles — and how do those perceptions relate to their own behavior and policy preferences? Our new study investigated exactly this in China, Germany, and the US.🧵 www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

A great thread I had previously missed 👇

Data shows wealthiest 0.1% of the US burn carbon at 4,000 times the rate of the world’s poorest 10% www.theguardian.com/environment/...

A must read for anyone who wants to understand behavior change as a part of climate action 👇

⭐ After quite some time in the making, I’m excited to share our new paper!🌿⭐ We examined people's climate-relevant behaviors (driving, air travel, public transport use, and meat consumption) and their perceptions of how feasible it would be to change them (+ expected wellbeing impacts). 🧵(1/4)

This! 🔥👇 Couldn't agree more, thank you @kristiansn89.bsky.social

Systems change is brought about by the collective actions of individuals. So individual actions, when supporting systems change, is absolutely fundamental to climate action.

This is spot on. Taking action in my personal life also provides me with a sense of purpose and progress when the broader world often disappoints. Always remember, you make a difference.