“I can't compromise the quality of my life I'm sorry”: Privileged individuals in the United Kingdom show little willingness to change high-carbon lifestyles

Changing high‑carbon lifestyles of individuals with high socioeconomic status (SES) is an important step toward reducing greenhouse gas emissions and ensuring social justice within climate change mitigation. However, shifting high‑carbon lifestyles may present a challenge, especially when many high‑carbon behaviours (such as frequent flying and car ownership) are used to signal status within individuals' social networks. Here, we report the findings of a pre-registered online mixed-methods study in the UK (N = 511) that examined the associations of descriptive norms about high‑carbon behaviours with policy support and with the likelihood to voluntarily reduce these behaviours for climate change mitigation. Contrary to our hypotheses, we found no meaningful association of descriptive norms with increased policy support, nor with decreased likelihood of voluntarily shifting behaviour. Participants showed moderate reluctance toward changing high‑carbon behaviours through voluntary or policy action but showed a slight preference for voluntary action that ran contrary to our initial predictions. This was mirrored within thematic analysis of our open-ended questions that revealed two main themes: (1) The desire for personal choice, which includes the option of not changing one's behaviour, and (2) High‑carbon lifestyles increase happiness. Overall, our findings suggest that individuals with high SES are unlikely to reduce lifestyle-related emissions, or support policy to this effect, when it requires them to make direct changes to high‑carbon behaviours. To change high‑carbon lifestyles of individuals with high SES, citizens should be supported in envisioning and creating pathways for sufficiency-focused lower-carbon lifestyles that can be desirable and fulfilling.