Environmental psychology is a branch of psychology that explores the relationship between humans and the external world. It examines the way in which the natural environment and our built environments shape us as individuals. Environmental psychology emphasizes how humans change the environment and how the environment changes humans' experiences and behaviors. The field defines the term environment broadly, encompassing natural environments, social settings, built environments, learning environments, and informational environments. According to an article on APA Psychnet, environmental psychology is when a person thinks of a plan, travels to a certain place, and follows through with the plan throughout their behavior.
Energy Saving Trust is a British organization devoted to promoting energy efficiency, energy conservation, and the sustainable use of energy, thereby reducing carbon dioxide emissions and helping to prevent man-made climate change. It was founded in the United Kingdom as a government-sponsored initiative in 1992, following the global Earth Summit.
Ecogovernmentality, is the application of Foucault's concepts of biopower and governmentality to the analysis of the regulation of social interactions with the natural world. The concept of Ecogovernmentality expands on Foucault's genealogical examination of the state to include ecological rationalities and technologies of government. Begun in the mid-1990s by a small body of theorists the literature on ecogovernmentality grew as a response to the perceived lack of Foucauldian analysis of environmentalism and in environmental studies.
Convergence in sustainability sciences refers to mechanisms and pathways that lead towards sustainability with a specific focus on 'Equity within biological planetary limits'. These pathways and mechanisms explicitly advocate equity and recognise the need for redistribution of the Earth's resources in order for human society to operate enduringly within the Earth's biophysical limits.
Carbon Literacy is the awareness of climate change and the climate impacts of humankind's everyday actions. The term has been used in a range of contexts in scientific literature and in casual usage, but is most associated with The Carbon Literacy Project (CLP).
The University of Bath Department of Psychology is a department within the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences of The University of Bath. The department is consistently ranked within the top five departments in the United Kingdom for undergraduate Psychology degrees. In 2017, the department's BSc/MSci programme was ranked 1st in the Guardian's university guide, 2nd in The Complete University Guide and 3rd in The Times & Sunday Times Good University Guide 2017.
Ipieca is a global not-for-profit oil and gas industry association for environmental and social issues, headquartered in London. The association was established in 1974 as the International Petroleum Industry Environmental Conservation Association and changed its name in 2002.
Brian C. O'Neill is an American earth system scientist who studies the relationship between future societal development, emissions, and climate change impacts. O'Neill is known for interdisciplinary work on climate and human systems, in particular population and climate change. He was also involved in the development of the shared socioeconomic pathways (SSPs) to be used in scenario analysis. He served as a lead author for several Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports.
Lisa Dilling is an interdisciplinary scholar who focuses on the energy transition, climate adaptation, decision making, the use of information, and science policy. She aims to improve the effectiveness of policies for climate change. Dilling is Associate Chief Scientist at the Environmental Defense Fund, an environmental non-profit that works on climate change, clean air and public health, and supporting the ability of people and nature to thrive.
Alice Larkin is a Professor of Climate Science and Energy Policy in the School of Engineering at the University of Manchester. She works on carbon budgets, international transport and cumulative emissions.
In Sudan, climate change has caused an increase in temperatures, a decline in rainfall and driven desertification. Climate change poses significant challenges for rainfed agriculture and therefore the entire economy. Analysis of weather patterns suggest drought conditions and other extreme weather increased in Sudan during the 20th century. The relationship between climate change, water conflict and the war in Sudan has also been a topic of academic debate.
Pro-environmental behaviour is behaviour that a person consciously chooses in order to minimize the negative impact of their actions on the environment. Barriers to pro-environmental behaviour are the numerous factors that hinder individuals when they try to adjust their behaviours toward living more sustainable lifestyles. Generally, these barriers can be separated into larger categories: psychological, social/cultural, financial and structural. Psychological barriers are considered internal, where an individual's knowledge, beliefs and thoughts affect their behaviour. Social and cultural barriers are contextual, where an individual's behaviour is affected by their surroundings. Financial barriers are simply a lack of funds to move toward more sustainable behaviour. Structural barriers are external and often impossible for an individual to control, such as lack of governmental action, or locality of residence that promotes car use as opposed to public transit.
Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs) are climate change scenarios of projected socioeconomic global changes up to 2100 as defined in the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report on climate change in 2021. They are used to derive greenhouse gas emissions scenarios with different climate policies. The SSPs provide narratives describing alternative socio-economic developments. These storylines are a qualitative description of logic relating elements of the narratives to each other. In terms of quantitative elements, they provide data accompanying the scenarios on national population, urbanization and GDP. The SSPs can be quantified with various Integrated Assessment Models (IAMs) to explore possible future pathways both with regards to socioeconomic and climate pathways.
Susana Mourato is a professor of environmental economics at the London School of Economics and Political Science. She holds a leader position at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment.
James Hall, is Professor of Climate and Environmental Risks and former director of the Environmental Change Institute at the University of Oxford. He is director of research at the School of Geography and the Environment, Senior Research Fellow at the Department of Engineering Science and Fellow of Linacre College. Hall is a member of the UK Prime Minister's Council for Science and Technology, Commissioner of the National Infrastructure Commission, and is chair of the Science and Advisory Committee of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis. He was appointed as a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering in 2010. He was a member of the Adaptation Sub-Committee of the UK Climate Change Committee from 2009 to 2019. He was appointed as Vice-President of the Institution of Civil Engineers in 2021 with a view to become President in 2024.
Xuemei Bai (白雪梅) is a professor for Urban Environment and Human Ecology at the Australian National University. She was the winner of the 2018 Volvo Environmental Prize, and is an elected fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia.
Behavioral spillover is the measurable effect that one behavioral intervention has on other behaviors that are not being targeted. Some definitions of behavioral spillover do not require that the first action was the result of an external intervention. Common requirements for defining behavioral spillover include requiring that the spillover must be both observable and causal. The two actions must be sequential and distinct, representing separate behaviors and actions, not two components or steps of a larger single process. The two behaviors must also share an underlying motivation.
Sarah Burch is a Canadian environmental scientist who is Canada Research Chair at the University of Waterloo. Her research considers strategies to respond to climate change at the community scale. She is a lead author for the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report.
Linda Steg is a Dutch psychologist who is Professor of Environmental Psychology at the University of Groningen. She studies the interaction between people and their environment and how people influence their local ecosystems. She was awarded the 2020 Dutch Research Council Stevin Prize.
Robert Nicholls is currently the Director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research and a professor of climate adaptation at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, United Kingdom.
