No evidence for effectiveness of behavioral interventions to mitigate climate change after adjusting for publication bias

Behavioral interventions on citizens are often promoted as a low-cost route to induce environmen-tally friendly behavior, yet published estimates of their effectiveness are highly variable and prone to selective reporting. We reanalyzed the evidence of behavioral interventions on citizens. We con-ducted Robust Bayesian Meta-Analysis (RoBMA), averaging across a full set of publication-bias adjusted models, to the 144 effect estimates (91 studies) compiled by Nisa et al. (2019). The bias-adjusted model-averaged posterior mean standardized effect of behavioral interventions on citizens is shrunk to 0.00 (95 % credible interval 0.00; 0.00), with a Bayes factor of 66 favoring the null. Accordingly, the previously reported noteworthy mean benefit of -0.093 (95% confidence interval -0.123; -0.063) of behavioral interventions, including promising light-touch interventions (nudges or social comparison), on households and individuals is an artefact of publication bias. There is, how-ever, evidence for small between-study heterogeneity, indicating that some specific interventions might have an effect. Exploratory subgroup tests offered only weak, inconsistent hints of context-specific gains. These results imply that, on average, behavioral interventions on households and individuals are unlikely to deliver material climate benefits.