Perspective: Blue sky thinking, tackling air pollution to increase ambition for the climate change agenda

Research in behavioural psychology suggests that tangible achievements can spur people on to greater success. Setting goals that offer visible, attainable results, even if incremental, can motivate people to aspire to and achieve higher aims that are very difficult, and that can seem beyond reach.

This same kind of motivational thinking is surfacing in the effort to address climate change. An emerging theme in the efforts to ratchet up to the global ambition needed to meet the sheer magnitude of the goals of the Paris Agreement is taking aim at using another route: emphasizing what can be achieved by focusing on the demonstrable, local benefits of taking certain actions – which themselves also help turn climate mitigation targets into reality.

Read the full perspective on the SEI website