PhD Spotlight: Tayte M. Adderley

Incorporating behavior into climate policy

Much of the climate analysis and policy field is focused on measuring and addressing bio-physical vulnerabilities. This approach prioritizes measurable, “hard” engineering solutions to protect assets, ignoring the socio-behavioral aspects that produce vulnerability among populations. Human activities largely drive anthropogenic climate change; behavior plays a major role in where we are today. Despite this, climate models and proposed interventions often fail to accurately represent behavioral responses.

This oversight is critical as humans actively interact with their environments and change them in the process. The results of these actions could fundamentally alter human society itself as well. Incorporating behavior into climate analysis and policy offers a valuable approach for exploring the feedback between human society and the environment. Further, behavioral responses to climatic events help us understand how people react to such events and how these shifts might scale from the micro to macro level. Understanding behavior enables the development of effective policy interventions for vulnerable populations.

“Human activities largely drive anthropogenic climate change; behavior plays a major role in where we are today. Despite this, climate models and proposed interventions often fail to accurately represent behavioral responses.”

Collaborating with local communities

My research interests are primarily driven by working on the Common SENSES project where I learned of how community members conceptualized and experienced environmental hazards in their community. Working on this project, it became clear that behavior and experiential aspects were important to understanding environmental hazards but also developing solutions with community members. 

Modeling social system interactions with climate change

Better incorporating the social into climate change research is complex. It would be a worthwhile field to explore and develop models that better capture social systems and their interactions with climate change. Further, pursuing research in this field will lead to more efficacious policies that work for the populations facing vulnerabilities. Ultimately, it would be fun to dive into the complexity of social systems and behavior and their implications for climate change.

I aspire to become a researcher, policy scientist, and focusing on making a tangible impact not only to academia but within the lives of vulnerable communities. I’d like to focus on largely proving and validating the need incorporating the social into climate analysis and policy.