Daily climate disasters are the new normal. In the past week, heavy rain on one side of the U.S. caused catastrophic flooding in New York and Vermont, and on the other side sent houses sliding off California mountains. The ocean off Florida has surface temperatures in the 90s Fahrenheit, and Arizonans have endured over-110-degree heat for more than a week.
That’s just one country, just this week. In Europe last summer, an estimated 60,000 people died of extreme heat, according to a new analysis. This year, with even higher global heat records, is likely to be worse.
The global effort to mount a robust response to climate change faces many barriers, with political dysfunction, polarization and greed prominent among them. But since writing my column last month about the success of a U.S. program for H.I.V./AIDS treatment, I’ve been thinking a lot about the role that political psychology plays in the crises of climate change and other thorny issues in which leaders struggle with prevention versus response.
Responding to emergencies is popular. Preventing them isn’t.
The program I wrote about last month is the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR, which had, on paper, an economically irrational reason to pay for expensive H.I.V./AIDS treatment.
One key insight from the PEPFAR results was that efficiency isn’t enough on its own; leaders need political support to carry out policies, too. Often, the most dollar-for-dollar efficient policies aren’t the ones that excite people — especially when leaders need political momentum for quick action (and funding). But combining efficient policies and those that have strong political appeal can have a powerful effect.
For PEPFAR, an economic analysis suggested that the most efficient use of the program’s dollars was to focus on prevention, which would save lives more cheaply than treatment. But the program also wanted to help people who were already infected, by paying for expensive antiretroviral treatment. Treatment drew greater political support and unlocked additional funding, allowing PEPFAR to ultimately save far more lives than if it were focused only on prevention.
PEPFAR was unique in many ways. But the lesson that people are often more interested in responding to emergencies than in preventing them has shown up in other research, too.
One paper, for instance, found that voters reward politicians for delivering emergency relief for natural disasters, but not for investing in natural-disaster preparedness — even though $1 spent on preparedness was worth approximately $15 in emergency response. That can create misaligned incentives.
“If you’re a politician, if you put your dollars on families that were hurt by the floods, in helping them build new homes, you’re getting rewarded much more than if you’re helping those communities spend this money for preparedness so those homes won’t be destroyed by the flood,” said Yotam Margalit, a political psychology researcher…
2023-07-12 11:13:41
Article from www.nytimes.com
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