When Predicting Climate-Relevant Intervention Effectiveness, Academics Outperform the Public, but Not a Simple Heuristic

Behavioral interventions are a promising tool to mitigate climate change, and expert forecasting is increasingly used to anticipate their success. However, little is known about how accurate expert predictions are—particularly in the climate domain. In this pre-registered study, we asked academics (N = 242), government officials (N = 23), climate change communicators (N = 23), and the general public (N = 574) to predict the effectiveness of 11 climate interventions on belief, policy support, and an effortful sustainable behaviour. Forecasts were compared to actual outcomes from a representative sample of Americans (N = 6,954). Analyses revealed that academics generally outperform the public, but how well they do varies across outcomes. However, they do not outperform predictions based on the simple heuristic that interventions have no effect. Our findings underscore the need to benchmark expert predictions carefully and to better understand the conditions under which they are reliable—especially when used to guide climate policy.