Human behavioral responses to climate change reshape climate projections
Abstract
Abstract Climate projections typically treat anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions as exogenous, overlooking feedbacks through which human behavioral responses to climate change reshape emission pathways. Here, we incorporate human behavioral responses into a reduced-complexity climate model to examine how behavioral feedbacks dynamically reshape future climate trajectories across multiple Shared Socioeconomic Pathway scenarios. We find that human behavioral responses can substantially alter projected warming, shifting end-of-century global mean temperature outcomes up to ±1 °C relative to projections without human behavioral responses. These effects differ across emissions pathways, possibly amplifying warming under SSP1-2.6 while reducing warming under SSP5-8.5. Personal action confidence, collective action confidence, and sensitivity of climate anxiety emerge as the dominant behavioral processes, determining both the magnitude and direction of climate responses. Human behavioral responses accumulate over time, with sustained adaptive responses progressively enhancing cooling effects, whereas prolonged maladaptive responses increasingly amplify warming. Our findings demonstrate that human behavior is not merely a consequence of climate change, but an active component of the climate system capable of reshaping long-term climate projections and evaluating the effectiveness of mitigation responses. These findings highlight the importance of integrating behavioral dimensions…
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