Technology
• Analysis
Techno-optimism linked to less climate action among scientists, study finds
Scientists who believe technology will largely solve the climate crisis are less likely to take climate action themselves, a London School of Economics study of more than 9,000 scientists across 115 countries has found: they are 23% less likely to sign petitions or join protests and 18% less likely to make high-impact lifestyle changes.
By Haut Monde Post
• October 7, 2026
• 3 Min Read
Fewer petitions, fewer protests, fewer lifestyle changes
The survey covered more than 9,000 scientists across 115 countries and tested the link between techno-optimism and climate action. Techno-optimism is the label the study gives to the belief that technology will largely solve climate change and its consequences. Overall, 27% of respondents agreed that technology will largely solve the problems caused by climate change, while 44% disagreed and 29% neither agreed nor disagreed.
- •Compared with peers who doubt technology is the answer, the techno-optimists were 23% less likely to sign petitions or join protests.
- •They reported fewer civic actions and protests, fewer petitions signed and less advocacy overall.
- •They were also 18% less likely to make high-impact lifestyle changes, such as reducing flights, cutting car usage or following a mostly vegan or vegetarian diet.
The lead author's warning
Fabian Dablander, the study's lead author, warned that techno-optimism can lead to an over-reliance on unproven solutions at the expense of the far-reaching socioeconomic transformations the climate and nature crisis needs. Technological solutions are often politically attractive, he noted, because "they promise to address climate change without requiring changes to how people live and consume".
He said his team sees the same tendency at the individual level: stronger faith in technological solutions comes with weaker engagement in climate action. "Yet technology cannot substitute for the broader societal changes and large-scale shifts in consumption that are also needed," he said.
An outside scientist's verdict
Prof Kevin Anderson, described as one of the world's leading climate scientists, is based at the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research at the University of Manchester and was not involved in the study. In his experience, a significant proportion of climate academics who enjoy very high incomes from their work have embraced the belief.
That belief, he said, offers a convenient escape from any uncomfortable sense of personal responsibility, allowing academics to maintain the comforting fiction that they are deeply concerned about the world their children will inherit while continuing to live lives that contribute disproportionately to the problem.
Faith in future technological salvation, he argued, "provides another crutch: a way of postponing difficult choices today by placing hope in solutions that may arrive tomorrow". The evidential basis for such promises, he added, falls far short of the standards of scrutiny those academics would demand of research conducted by others.
Anderson called the result "a remarkable inversion of scientific practice":
"The more uncomfortable the implications of the evidence, the greater the enthusiasm for believing in a future that the evidence does not support."
The study is published in the journal Environmental Research Letters.
