Decision making articles from across Nature Portfolio

As political institutions debate environmental policies, this paper reveals how some members of the European Parliament think about underlying principles of degrowth versus more traditional ‘green’ and economic growth platforms.

Green technologies foster the use of green energy; however, large investment costs hinder adoption. In a large-scale field experiment, the authors show that message framing can promote a serious commitment to solar panels among the broader public.

The mechanism of confidence formation in learning remains poorly understood. Here, the authors show that both dorsal and ventral prefrontal networks encode confidence, but only the ventral network incorporates the valence-induced bias.

Valuable information on the disproportionate impacts of natural hazards on vulnerable populations is only captured when equity is considered in disaster risk models, according to an evaluation of common disaster risk assessments approaches

Hardy and co-authors present a resampling strategy in social networks that is effective at reducing bias amplification while maintaining the benefits of information sharing.

Cooperation is more likely when individuals can choose their interaction partner. However, here, the authors show that partner choice can increase resource inequality in a public goods game when people differ in resources and productivity needed for cooperation.

Policy making is entering a phase of more transformative strategies targeting the full life cycle of plastics, argues Patrick Schröder.

The global stocktake seeks to enhance climate ambition through assessment and review of collective efforts every five years. A recent breakthrough in finance for addressing loss and damage is an opportunity to strengthen the finance agenda and rebuild much needed trust in the multilateral system.

Principles underpinning the 2030 Agenda — indivisibility, integration and universality — can safeguard against inaction or unsustainable practices but have not yet come into effect. We propose measures to strengthen alignment with them as the world gears up to accelerate implementation at the 2023 SDG Summit.