Thesis title: Three Essays on ClimateChange & Behavioural Economics: Cooperation, Climate Hazard and Equity
This thesis contains three main chapters investigating the intersection of climate change, vulnerability, and behavioural adaptation and mitigation strategies across multiple contexts, with a particular focus on how climate risks affect the mostexposed individuals and communities. Climate change represents one of the most urgent challenges facing the world today, with vulnerable communities hardest hit across the globe. The research highlights how climate-change exposure demands decision-makers’ responses in both rural and urban settings. We explore two relationships: (1) the role of prolonged climate exposure among indigenous communities in Papua New Guinea, and (2) urban resilience, focusing on more active-mobility solutions that include vulnerable urban populations while supporting more inclusive interventions in urban planning. Chapter 1 investigates experimentally the psychological propensity to invest in adaptation or mitigation vis-a`-vis the status quo. Our experiment draws on the collective risk social dilemma, where individual contributions decrease the probability that collective losses will occur, as is the case with climate change. Our research took place in Bouganville (Papua New Guinea), where people are highly exposed to the risks of climate change. In Chapter 2, we focus on vulnerable communities exposed to climate change Social Cohesion and Climate-Change Exposure: An Experimental Analysis from Small-Scale Societies in Papua New Guinea we analyse the relationship between climate exposure and social cohesion in Papua New Guinea. Using the Power-to-Take Game framework, it assesses how social cohesion and in-group bias interact with climate-related risks, and whether such exposure strengthens or weakens social ties within communities. The study also explores how climate shocks influence individuals’ willingness to cooperate. In Chapter 3, Justice on the Move: Behavioural Interventions for Inclusive and Active Mobility, we shift the lens to urban environments. This study examines how behavioural interventions can support inclusive active-mobility transitions. Drawing on more than ninety interventions from twenty-two countries, it investigates how vulnerable urban populations—such as the elderly, disabled, and low-income groups—are disproportionately affected by climate change, particularly regarding access to safe and sustainable mobility. Using the COM-B model and the Behaviour Change Wheel framework, the paper explores how urban-mobility interventions can reduce inequalities and promote climate resilience by fostering inclusive transportation systems. Overall, the thesis provides a multifaceted perspective on how climate change shapes behaviour, social cohesion, and cooperation in both rural and urban contexts shedding light on pathways for enhancing resilience among vulnerable communities.