npj Climate Action

Seeing is believing or believing is seeing: divergent pathways to climate action and policy support following extreme weather events

Muhammad Usman Amin Siddiqi — Mon, 18 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Do extreme weather event experiences shape individual climate actions and policy preferences? Some social science theory suggests that personal exposure to such events gives rise to beliefs that spur climate change actions and/or policy support (“seeing is believing”). Alternative theory suggests that beliefs about climate change instead shape event interpretation (“believing is seeing”), attenuating responses for non-believers. Research about how extreme weather events influence actions and policy preferences is inconclusive and sometimes contradictory. We apply Structural Equation Modelling, an approach well-suited to disentangling complex relationships, to survey data from two distinct states – Alabama (n = 916) and Oregon (n = 1306) – that experienced different extreme weather events (hurricanes and wildfires, respectively). We show that support for climate policies is tied to both general and event-specific climate concerns, while actions are associated with harm experiences, descriptive norms, and event-specific climate concerns. Our findings have implications for climate communications and policymaking.

Learning from adaptation to develop loss and damage monitoring and evaluation systems

Susannah Fisher — Fri, 15 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Loss and damage is now firmly entrenched in global climate governance, yet there has been relatively little discussion around how to determine whether a loss and damage intervention is successful. We review the conceptual, methodological and political challenges identified within adaptation monitoring, evaluation, reporting and learning (MERL) to draw lessons for responding to loss and damage. Our review concludes by laying out a research and action agenda.

The public university as a potential just transition hub

Paul Almeida — Thu, 14 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Public universities surrounded by frontline communities create the potential to serve as focal points for just transition strategies to address the climate crisis. University students from environmental justice communities can serve as just transition ambassadors as trusted messengers to facilitate equitable climate solutions and green workforce development. In the context of finite financial resources, state and philanthropic foundations should consider prioritizing investing in units within universities working with disinvested and low-income populations. More specifically, investing in university labor centers offers the greatest likelihood of obtaining desired outcomes. A case study of the University of California, Merced, is presented as a model for designating public universities in regions with high densities of climate-vulnerable groups as hubs for implementing just transition practices.

Towards a research and policy agenda for climate action in smaller municipalities and rural regions

Harriet Bulkeley — Mon, 11 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Municipalities are crucial for climate action, but most research has focused on large cities, neglecting smaller ones. Drawing on Professor Kristine Kern’s work, including smaller municipalities, this perspective assesses current knowledge on the municipal landscape, local innovation, financial aspects, multi-level dynamics, and networks. Going forward, a future research agenda for smaller municipalities should center on smaller and informal networks, the durability of action, and the dynamics and limits of scaling.

Toward community-ready weather observations in a rapidly changing Arctic: bridging local needs, extreme events, and climate adaptation

Jun Inoue — Sat, 09 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Arctic communities are increasingly facing rapid-onset hazards; however, lower-tropospheric observations remain limited, constraining predictability. Previous enhanced observation efforts improved forecast skill but remained costly and impractical for community use. We synthesized these lessons and advocate for low-cost, community-ready atmospheric profiling systems that provide on-demand vertical data and interfaces with emerging AI-based forecasting models. This scalable paradigm can strengthen short-range hazard prediction and climate resilience across polar and other data-sparse regions.

From grief to hope: the diverse emotional pathways of glacier loss in the tropics

I. Palomo — Thu, 07 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The emotional dimensions of glacier retreat remain underexplored despite the impacts of glacier loss on biodiversity, nature’s contributions to people, and cultural identities. This study examines the diverse emotional pathways arising from glacier loss and their links to different climate actions. Drawing on 34 semi-structured interviews with stakeholders from over ten tropical countries—including Indigenous peoples and local communities, environmental advocates, scientists, mountaineers, and artists—we identify five primary emotions: care, concern, sadness, acceptance, and hope. These emotions are shaped by lived experiences, values (intrinsic, instrumental, and relational), as well as political and socio-economic contexts. While negative emotions are an inevitable part of climate change impacts and often reflect grief and anxiety, positive emotions—especially care and hope—might be nurtured by engagement in various types of climate action, such as glacier monitoring, awareness-raising or nature restoration, contributing to self-identity building and increased well-being. Our results illustrate how personal histories, spiritual beliefs, socio-economic context and professional practices influence emotional responses, and highlight the importance of incorporating emotional narratives into climate communication and policy to foster adaptation strategies grounded in both knowledge and affect.

Climate policy risks, market volatility, and credibility: evidence from the US transition climate policy and textual analysis

Hany Fahmy — Tue, 05 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

This study proposes a novel classification of transition climate policies and constructs a set of climate policy risk indexes through textual analysis of U.S. climate-related policies between 2000 and 2022. Using annual data on clean and emission firms, the study employs an augmented panel GARCH-X to examine the impact of the policy risk factor on the mean and volatility of stock prices. The mean analysis reveals that transition policy risks are negatively priced in clean returns and positively priced in carbon-intensive returns. Shocks in transition climate policies are found to induce higher volatility in clean firms and promote stability in emission firms. Overall, the empirical analysis deduces that U.S. transition climate policies lack credibility and carry negative public climate sentiment. The findings and the policy recommendations of this study are noteworthy to regulators, policymakers, and other stakeholders.

The foreign spillovers of hybrid trade-based climate governance

Rodrigo Fagundes Cezar — Thu, 30 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Countries often adopt climate mitigation policies that generate extraterritorial effects through trade. These measures can interact with existing private governance tools, such as voluntary sustainability standards (VSS). We call this hybrid trade-based climate governance. This article aims to examine how the EU designed the hybrid trade-based climate governance in the biofuels sector, and to begin evaluating its spillover effects in third countries. We do so by revisiting the political process behind the EU’s renewable energy directive (EU RED) and by probing its impacts in Brazil through Bonsucro. Using process tracing, we indicate that the European Commission avoided including socioeconomic criteria in the assessment of its biofuels regulation. Quantitative analysis, in turn, suggests that the EU’s orchestration of VSS is associated with mixed effects on the ground in Brazil. The EU biofuels governance may be ill-suited to help promote climate justice abroad due to its excessive focus on procedures rather than fair impacts. While this is an initial, tentative analysis, the results nonetheless reinforce the need for a more careful discussion of alternative approaches to VSS orchestration.