A new study shows that there is a huge disproportion in the level of funding for social science research into the greatest challenge in combatting global warming — how to get individuals and societies to overcome ingrained human habits to make the changes necessary to mitigate climate change.
The analysis argues that despite many of the key climate-change puzzles residing in the social sciences (such as anthropology, economics, international relations, human geography, development studies, political science, psychology etc), these fields receive least funding for climate research.
Academics from the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs and the University of Sussex analysed research grants from 332 donors around the world spanning 4.3 million awards with a cumulative value of USD 1.3 trillion from 1950 to 2021.
According to the study’s estimates, between 1990 and 2018 the natural and technical sciences received 770% more funding than the social sciences for research on climate change — USD 40 billion compared to only USD 4.6 billion for the social sciences and humanities.
Only 0.12% of all research funding was spent on the social science of climate mitigation.
Even the countries that spent the most on social science climate research in absolute terms — the UK, the USA, and Germany — spent between 500% and 1200% more on climate research in the natural and technical sciences.
The report’s co-authors say funding of climate research appears to be based on the assumption that if natural scientists work out the causes, impacts, and technological remedies of climate change, then politicians, officials, and citizens will spontaneously change their behaviour to tackle the problem. The academics argue the evidence from the past decades shows this assumption does not hold.
Read more at University of Sussex
