When concern is not enough: Overcoming the climate awareness-action gap

Climate concern is on the rise in many countries and recent research finds that lifestyle- and behaviour-change could advance climate action; yet, individuals struggle to move their climate concern into action. This is known as the ‘awareness-action inconsistency,’ ‘psychological climate paradox,’ or ‘values-action gap.’ While this gap has been extensively studied, climate action implementation and policy-design seldom sufficiently apply that body of knowledge in practice. This Perspective presents a comprehensive heuristic to account for how individuals bring climate change into their awareness (climate action-logics), how they keep climate change out of their awareness (climate shadow), how social narratives contribute to shaping choices (climate discourses), and how systems and structures influence and constrain agency (climate-action systems). The heuristic is illustrated with an example of 15-Minute Cities in Canada. Understanding the multifaceted dilemma that weighs on people’s sense-making and behaviours may help policy-makers and practitioners to ameliorate the climate awareness-action gap.