Governments should nudge us towards sustainable lifestyles

livemint.com:

If there’s a month dedicated to self-betterment, it’s January. The gyms are full, the pubs are empty, and green juices are flying off the shelves. Even with the best of intentions, the vast majority of New Year’s resolutions don’t last very long.

Many goal-setters give up within just three months. We’re now in the second week of January, and some of you may have already slipped up on promises. Your columnist has already watered down one of her ambitions (we’re doing ‘damp’ January now).

But such faltering is notable because we’re going to need permanent behaviour changes to meet emission targets. Consumer decisions alone won’t halt climate change, but collectively we can make the task much easier by, for example, reducing demand for fossil fuels or carbon-intensive products. The question is how to make that happen, especially when our psychology makes it hard to change habits.

One reason for our collective annual failure is that we don’t tend to set goals for ourselves in a useful way, making them large without specificity or accountability. Setting a goal to ‘save money’ is nearly useless without a target and an action plan to support it—such as, for example, setting aside a fixed sum every month. With that in mind, here is what can be done to reduce one’s carbon impact: Instead of vowing to eat a more planet-friendly diet, you should narrow down what that means.