Internal and External, Local and Global

Climate variability and change will affect the health and livelihoods of most populations in the coming years, putting the lives and well-being of millions of people at increased risk.

Most climate change adaptation and risk reduction measures require that humans modify existing behaviors or adopt new ones.

Much of our behavior is nonconscious, habitual, and driven by cues in our environment or the way that choices are presented. Moreover, there is a lack of social norms governing how to address climate change in many societies. We are capable of making decisions in a considered, deliberate way, but this happens less often than we assume. When people individually or collectively consider climate science and projections of future change impacts, there can be “psychological distance” related to climate information that can make it seem unreal, intangible, and therefore not urgent.

Human behavior is complex — it often takes a combination of approaches to cause an individual to test, adopt, and sustain behaviors.

The degradation of nature can lead to gender-based violence including sexual assault, domestic violence, forced prostitution and child marriage.