However, the focus here is on the psychological, educational, and design implications of adaptation strategies across various cultures and regions of the world. In addition, the papers included in the present Research Topic suggest how psychological insights can influence interventions to strengthen resilience and promote collective action, at various levels, such as local and global (from the environmental and economic point of view), or individual, collective and societal (from the psychological point of view). Likewise, the variety of empirical and theoretical contributions of this Research Topic describes the different possible types of mechanisms supporting climate change action, such as preventive, responsive, or recovery resilience functions, for example.
At a global level, what contribution can psychology make to achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)? Psychologically, this involves questions related to the perception of the different aspects of climate change, and of the related implications in terms of developing adequate programs of education and training for ecologically appropriate behavior, as well as setting up the conditions for increased collective responsibility and implementing effective interventions to promote environmentally conscious attitudes and behaviors.
This aspect also touches the problem of environmental inaction and attitude-behavior gaps in pro-environmental action which, in turn, has been linked to the issue of climate change skepticism and anti-scientific stances. According to various studies, climate change denialism may also be conflated with political and ideological orientations, especially in the USA, while apparently less so in other parts of the world.
At a more local level, it is also important to understand how specific psychological concepts can be applied to create conditions for a more sustainable adaptation to climate change processes, in real life settings. From this point of view, resilience has proven to be a successful adaptation strategy, functioning at different levels, and allowing for different adaptation strategies in the relation between the individuals and their surrounding environments.
Human resilience in relation to climate change may in fact operate at multiple levels, each contributing to enhance our adaptive capacity to cope with increasingly demanding environmental conditions. At an individual level, resilience may imply a personal readiness to undertake adaptive behaviors in different domains, such as more sustainable consumption or more sustainable technology adoption, although negative trade-offs between climate change adaptation and mitigation measures may also occur.
At a collective level, resilience processes have been related to social networks, place attachment and identity, community ties and local initiatives, which may have a positive role for the promotion of adaptive capacity and collective efficacy in relation to environmental challenges. Specific features of the physical environment can also help resilience in relation to climate change, such as the presence of nature in urban settings, walkability or other urban affordances.
These different features of resilience can in turn help to the develop preventive, responsive or recovery strategies, across different types of climate impacts, and focusing either on the reduction of risks, the addressing of primary needs, and the recovery of functional resources.
A Guest Editorial