Behavioral feedbacks to climate mitigation under intensifying disasters

The current IPCC assessment outlines idealized pathways to limit warming below 2°C, yet record-high emissions in 2024 breached the 1.5°C threshold, underscoring the persistent gap between aspirational targets and real-world progress. Meanwhile, frequent extreme weather events increasingly trigger complex human responses, influencing public beliefs, risk perceptions, and support for climate policies, factors not captured by existing integrated assessment models underpinning IPCC reports. Here, we explore how key behavioral feedbacks to mitigation—cognition, communication, and conflict—might evolve under escalating climate disruptions, potentially undermining global climate mitigation efforts. Given the profound implications of neglecting psychological and societal dynamics, and the paucity of research on futures with severe climate impacts, we propose a targeted research agenda for rigorously integrating these behavioral feedbacks into IAM-based scenarios, enhancing the realism and policy relevance of upcoming IPCC assessments.