Sustainability in Academia (Article 8, January 2026)
Santhosh Jayaram
Climate action rarely fails because of a lack of intent. Governments announce ambitious targets, corporations publish net-zero roadmaps, and citizens broadly agree that cleaner air, lower emissions, and a safer climate are necessary. Yet, again and again, well-meaning policies encounter resistance once they begin to shape everyday life, how we travel, what we eat, and how we heat or cool our homes. This is not simply a problem of politics or communication; it is a problem of policy design. In the eighth instalment of “Sustainability in Academia”, let’s examine a recent paper in Nature Sustainability that examines this uncomfortable truth. The paper lays bare that climate action depends not only on what we ask people to do, but also on how those demands are made and how they make people feel.
The paper, “An empirically based dynamic approach to sustainable climate policy design” by Katrin Schmelz and Samuel Bowles, challenges a foundational assumption underlying much of climate policy: that stricter rules automatically lead to better outcomes. The dominant logic in environmental governance assumes that people respond primarily to incentives and penalties. Make pollution costly, restrict harmful behaviour, enforce strict compliance, and emissions will fall.
This paper shows, with empirical evidence, that this logic is incomplete. Let’s see how.
People are not just economic actors responding to price signals; they are also social beings who care deeply about autonomy, fairness, and dignity. Policies that ignore these dimensions risk undermining the very motivations that drive long-term success.
The authors introduce a concept that deserves far more attention in sustainability discourse: control aversion. When people feel that their freedom is unnecessarily restricted, they push back, not always by breaking the rule, but by withdrawing internal support. This erosion of motivation may not show up immediately in compliance data, but it weakens the political and social foundations of climate action over time.
The empirical backbone of the paper is a large, representative survey of over 3,300 German citizens. Respondents were asked how willing they would be to adopt a set of climate-friendly behaviours under two conditions:
- If the behaviour was strongly recommended but voluntary, and
- If the same behaviour was mandated and enforced.
The behaviours included reducing meat consumption, limiting car use in cities, lowering indoor temperatures, avoiding short-haul flights, and choosing low-carbon products.
Importantly, the survey did not ask whether people would comply with the law. Instead, it asked whether they were personally “okay with” adopting the behaviour. This distinction is crucial. People may comply under pressure while harbouring resentment, frustration, or hostility, emotions that matter greatly for long-term policy sustainability.
The results were strikingly consistent. Across most climate behaviours, agreement was significantly higher when actions were voluntary. When enforced, support dropped sharply, even among people who otherwise expressed strong concern about climate change.
This decline in agreement is what the authors describe as crowding out: enforcement reduces intrinsic motivation. The policy achieves behavioural compliance at the cost of eroding the values that make voluntary, sustained climate action possible.
One of the most valuable contributions of the paper is its comparison between climate mandates and COVID-related restrictions. During the pandemic, societies across the world, including India, accepted extraordinary limits on personal freedom: lockdowns, mask mandates, travel restrictions, and vaccination requirements.
The authors find that control aversion was significantly lower for COVID policies than for climate policies, despite COVID restrictions being more intrusive.
Why were people more accepting?
First, COVID restrictions were widely perceived as temporary. Even when timelines were uncertain, there was a shared understanding that these measures existed to address an acute crisis and would eventually be lifted. The loss of freedom was framed as short-term pain for long-term restoration of normal life.
Second, the effectiveness of COVID measures was easier to understand and observe. Masks, vaccines, and reduced contact were clearly and immediately linked to reduced infections and mortality. The paper shows that belief in effectiveness significantly reduced resistance and, in some cases, reversed it, with enforcement increasing agreement.
Third, COVID restrictions were framed as freedom-restoring rather than freedom-destroying. The narrative was clear: restrictions were a means to regain mobility, safety, and social interaction.
Climate policies often fail on all three dimensions. They are perceived as permanent rather than transitional, their effectiveness is abstract and delayed, and they are framed as limits on consumption rather than pathways to a better quality of life. The lesson here is not that people oppose restrictions, but that they accept them more readily when they believe they will end and can see what they deliver.
To illustrate how mandates can still play a constructive role, the authors introduce a conceptual experiment around electric vehicle (EV) adoption. This example resonates strongly with the Indian context, particularly for cities like New Delhi, which struggle with chronic air pollution.
The authors describe a familiar “carbon trap.” People hesitate to buy EVs because the charging infrastructure is limited and the costs are high. Infrastructure providers hesitate to invest because EV adoption is low. The system remains locked into fossil-fuel dependence.
Now, let’s imagine a scenario wherein the government introduces a restriction, such as banning petrol and diesel vehicles from city centres.
This policy has two opposing effects. On the one hand, it makes conventional vehicles less attractive and accelerates EV adoption. As more people switch, charging infrastructure improves and costs fall, creating a self-reinforcing transition.
On the other hand, the restriction may provoke control aversion. Some people feel forced, their intrinsic motivation weakens, and broader support for climate policy erodes.
The key insight is that both effects can coexist. The success of the policy depends on whether the mandate pushes adoption past a tipping point where they can see the impact. Once enough people adopt EVs, the system becomes self-sustaining. At that stage, even if restrictions are relaxed, people will continue to choose EVs voluntarily.
For Delhi, this distinction is crucial. Temporary, well-communicated restrictions that visibly improve air quality and mobility can help the city escape its pollution trap. Permanent, poorly designed coercion risks backlash and policy fatigue.
The lesson is not to retreat from regulation, nor to dilute ambition. It is to recognise that policy strength is not measured by how forcefully behaviour is controlled, but by how effectively change becomes self-sustaining. The COVID experience demonstrated that societies will accept significant restrictions when they are clearly temporary, visibly effective, and credibly linked to the restoration of freedom. Climate policy must internalise this lesson.
Article 1: Higher the ESG Score, Higher the Risk of Green Washing
Article 2: Do We Really Care for Climate Change-Related Targets?
Article 3: The Hidden Cost of SDG Progress: Who’s Paying the Price?
Article 4: How susceptible are you to being Greenwashed?
Article 5: The Great Indian Political CSR
Article 6: What Does “G” Say About “E” of ESG?
Article 7: The Planet is Heating, So Is Literature: A Cli-Fi Conversation
Cutting through academic jargon, this monthly series distills key findings from sustainability research into actionable insights for professionals and decision-makers.
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