May 2025 spell climate hope after a super-warm 2024

Let's harness the negativity bias that humans are predisposed to for measures aimed at faster climate action

- LEENA SRIVASTAVA

As 2024 came to an end, a number of alarming articles have been published in various global and national media on 2024 being the hottest year on record, the disastrous impact of extreme events due to climate change, the need to enhance climate action in the face of contentious climate negotiations in Azerbaijan and an American election that does not bode well for the climate agenda, among others.

All these concerns are valid and need immediate attention. However, several other articles highlighted positive developments related to the ground being laid for a potential transition away from fossil fuels, notably the explosion of affordable and accessible renewable energy, the rapid growth of electric vehicles, the falling costs of battery storage, big moves away from coal, etc. But these articles provide little solace. The sense of foreboding around climate change is palpable primarily because of the contrast between widely published real-time data and the highly visible impact of extreme events across the world and the perceptibly slow evolution of a sub-set of solutions that may take years to reach a take-off point.

That the human mind is predisposed to a negativity bias—a cognitive bias that recognizes and responds to negative events with greater sensitivity than when positive or neutral things of equal intensity occur—has been well established for at least half a century. This bias is abundantly visible in discussions on climate change and its impacts, fed by the same dread visible in some news reportage and on social media. This bias, however, must be positively harnessed.