Public Support For Climate Policies Research Articles

Emphasizing urgency of climate change is insufficient to increase policy support

<h2>Summary</h2> Although many people are concerned about climate change, active public support for ambitious policies is still lagging behind. How can this gap be closed? Recent work has theorized that the perceived urgency of climate change drives public support for climate policy, but this lacks empirical evidence. Using advanced sparse regressions and comparative survey-embedded framing experiments with 9,911 eligible voters in Germany and the United States, we empirically studied the role of perceived urgency. Our study provides two findings. First, although perceived urgency is key in driving support for "low-cost" mitigation policies, it does not lead to more support for "high-cost" mitigation policies where the behavioral implications are visible. Second, while temporal reframing does not increase policy support or feelings of dread, context information about demand-side mitigation increases support for such costly climate policies. The results are particularly relevant for democracies, where ambitious policies require the support of citizens.

The climate decade: Changing attitudes on three continents

Using identical surveys a decade apart, we examine how attitudes and willingness to pay (WTP) for climate policies have changed in the United States, China, and Sweden. All three countries exhibit an increased willingness to pay for climate mitigation. Ten years ago, Sweden had a larger fraction of believers in anthropogenic climate change and a higher WTP for mitigation, but today the national averages are more similar. Although we find convergence in public support for climate policy across countries, there is considerable divergence in both WTP and climate attitudes within countries. Political polarization explains part of this divergence.

How to encourage pro-environmental behaviors without crowding out public support for climate policies

Utilities, governmental agencies, and nonprofit organizations all use interventions meant to spur the public to act in ways that reduce greenhouse gas emissions, such as by turning down the heat in the winter and limiting beef consumption. Yet critics contend that these interventions promote relatively trivial behaviors while reducing the perceived need to support regulations that would have much more of an effect but might require, say, increased taxes or effort. In other words, promoting behavioral interventions can crowd out the public's support for climate policies. But this undesirable consequence is avoidable. In this article, I propose evidence-based guidelines, which I collectively call the SESH formula, for implementing climate-related behavioral interventions that avoid crowding out support for effective policies. They hold that interventions should (a) push for specific high-impact behaviors, (b) accurately convey the behaviors' effectiveness, (c) promote behaviors that are similar to (that is, are clearly related to) desirable policies, and (d) frame the desired behaviors as steps toward a higher goal—in this case, climate-change mitigation. I review the evidence for each SESH guideline and identify areas for future research into behavioral interventions that will complement, rather than undermine, climate-change policies.

Citizen assemblies can enhance political feasibility of ambitious climate policies

Public surveys suggest that the majority of citizens in most democratic countries is in favor of more ambitious action on climate change. Yet, policymakers still hesitate to propose ambitious but costly climate policies because they fear public backlash. Randomly sampled citizen assemblies are promoted as a way to increase the political feasibility of ambitious but costly climate policies. To test this claim, we conducted a representative survey (n = 1,252), survey-embedded conjoint experiment (n = 624), and semi-structured interviews with a survey sub-sample (n = 41) in Germany. Our key finding is that, in Germany, a citizen assembly can increase public support for climate policies. However, this positive effect is strongly dependent on how the citizen assembly is designed and on the degree of public awareness and informedness about the assembly. We provide recommendations for informing about and designing citizen assemblies to enhance the political feasibility of ambitious climate policies.

Exploring the cross-national variation in public support for climate policies in Europe: The role of quality of government and trust

To reach ambitious climate change mitigation targets and steer actors toward more climate friendly behaviors, governments will have to implement climate policy measures. Imposing certain policy instruments may be challenging since gaining public support for climate policies may be difficult in some countries, especially given the low levels of political trust we see in Europe and elsewhere in the world today. We argue that contextual factors, specifically, institutional quality matters. Using data from the European Social Survey (2016), we explore whether cross-national variation in public support for climate policies is associated with levels of quality of government (QoG) and trust in political institutions and people in general, and if such associations vary across different types of climate policies, including taxes, subsidies, and bans. We find that QoG and generalized trust are positively linked to support for taxes, but not to support for subsidies and bans. Moreover, we find that political trust is more strongly linked to support for taxes than to support for subsidies and bans. These results hold using alternative model specifications.

Emphasizing Urgency of Climate Change No Silver Bullet to Increase Policy Support

While many people are concerned about climate change, active public support for ambitious policy action is still lagging behind. How can this gap be closed? Recent work has theorized that perceived urgency of climate change drives public support for climate policy, but we lack empirical evidence. Using advanced sparse regressions and comparative survey-embedded framing experiments with 9’911 eligible voters in Germany and the US, we study the role of perceived urgency empirically. Our study entails two findings: First, although perceived urgency is key in driving policy support for ‘low-cost’ climate change mitigation, it does not lead to more support for policy measures that make the behavioral implications and costs of mitigation visible. Second, simple temporal reframing does not increase feelings of dread and policy support. The results are particularly relevant for democracies, where ambitious climate policies require the support of citizens. We call for further inter- and transdisciplinary research on the effects of perceived urgency, especially in contexts where citizens can credibly match temporal frames with their perceived personal experiences and emotions.

The Climate Decade: Changing Attitudes on Three Continents

We examine how attitudes and willingness to pay (WTP) for climate policies have changed over the past decade in the United States, China, and Sweden. All three countries exhibit an increased willingness to pay for climate mitigation. Ten years ago, Sweden had a larger fraction of believers in anthropogenic climate change and a higher WTP for mitigation, but today the national averages are more similar. Although we find convergence in public support for climate policy across countries, there is considerable divergence in climate attitudes and preferences within countries, particularly the United States. Political polarization explains part of this divergence.

The Effects of Policy Design Complexity on Public Support for Climate Policy

Many important policy challenges like climate change, pandemics or digitalization require transformative policy responses that take the form of complex policy packages. Nevertheless, most public opinion research has studied public support for single policy instruments, while it remains unclear to what extent citizens evaluate isolated and combined policies differently. In this study, I argue that both the increased complexity of policy designs and the packaging of costly and compensatory measures can substantially affect public opinion. I employ a novel two-stage conjoint-based experimental approach in the United States and Germany to test this argument. In contrast to my expectations based on framing theory, the results show that policy packaging can increase support for climate policies, but that the complexity of policy designs per se does not substantially shift public opinion. Facing complex policy packages, respondents still make rational choices and compensatory policy designs are key to explaining shifts in public support.

Does Quality of Government and Trust Explain the Cross-National Variation in Public Support for Climate Policies?

In accordance with the Paris agreement, the signing countries have undertaken to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, implying more government intervention to steer the behaviors of different actors with climate policy measures. However, states face very different possibilities for gaining support for such interventions, especially those targeting the consumption patterns of individual citizens, due to for example the variation in economic development, the quality of political institutions, and other country covariates. While most research on climate policy support has focused on individual factors, such as ideological position, values and socio-demographic factors, there are also studies out there showing that there is quite some variation in country support for various climate change policies. Using newly published data from the European Social Survey, we explore whether variation in climate policy support is associated with levels of quality of government (QoG) and individuals’ trust in political institutions and people in general, and if these associations vary across different types of climate policies. We find that QoG and generalized trust are positively linked to support for climate taxes, but we find no associations with support for climate subsidies and climate bans. Moreover, we find that political and institutional trust are more strongly linked to support for climate taxes than to support for climate subsidies and climate bans.

Energy Supply and Decarbonisation Beyond Brexit: Politics and Policy

Energy Supply and Decarbonisation Beyond Brexit: Politics and Policy

Psychological Barriers to Bipartisan Public Support for Climate Policy

Psychological scientists have the expertise—and arguably an obligation—to help understand the political polarization that impedes enactment of climate policy. Many explanations emphasize Republican skepticism about climate change. Yet results from national panel studies in 2014 and 2016 indicate that most Republicans believe in climate change, if not as strongly as Democrats. Political polarization over climate policy does not simply reflect that Democrats and Republicans disagree about climate change but that Democrats and Republicans disagree with each other. The results of a national panel experiment and of in-depth interviews with four former members of Congress suggest that Democrats and Republicans—both ordinary citizens and policymakers—support policies from their own party and reactively devalue policies from the opposing party. These partisan evaluations occur both for policies historically associated with liberal principles and politicians (cap-and-trade) and for policies associated with conservative principles and politicians (revenue-neutral carbon tax). People also exaggerate how much other Democrats and Republicans are swayed by partisanship. This foments false norms of partisan opposition that, in turn, influence people’s personal policy support. Correcting misperceived norms of opposition and decoupling policy evaluation from identity concerns would help overcome these seemingly insurmountable barriers to bipartisan support for climate policy.

Consequence evaluations and moral concerns about climate change: insights from nationally representative surveys across four European countries

This paper examines consequence evaluations and moral concerns about climate change across four European countries. Data from nationally representative samples (each n > 1000) were analysed in order to explore the relative importance of consequences versus morality in explaining public support for different climate policies. Most respondents expected climate change to have largely negative consequences for their respective country. Climate change consequences were viewed most negatively in Germany, followed by France, the U.K. and Norway. While the vast majority of respondents expressed at least some degree of moral concern about climate change, a notable minority in each sample stated that they have no such concerns. Moral concerns were highest in France, followed by the U.K. and Norway, and lowest in Germany. It was found that both judgements explain support for policies that aim to mitigate climate change or aim to adapt to the impacts of climate change. However, our results further suggest that moral concern was a stronger predictor of policy support than consequence evaluations. If at all, consequence evaluations were more likely to predict policy support in Germany and Norway than in the U.K. and France. Overall, policies that involved subsidies received the strongest support, whereas policies involving individual costs received the least support. This research broadens our understanding of the intertwining between risk perceptions and public support for climate policies, documenting variability across and within countries. Implications for policy-makers with an interest in communicating climate change risks to the broader public audience are discussed.

Carbon offsets out of the woods? Acceptability of domestic vs. international reforestation programmes in the lab

Following the entry into force of the Paris Agreement in November 2016, governments around the world are now expected to turn their nationally determined contributions into concrete climate policies. Given the global public good nature of climate change mitigation and the important cross-country differences in marginal abatement costs, distributing mitigation efforts across countries could substantially lower the overall cost of implementing climate policy. However, abating emissions abroad instead of domestically may face important political and popular resistance. We ran a lab experiment with more than 300 participants and asked them to choose between a domestic and an international reforestation project. We tested the effect of three informational treatments on the allocation of participants’ endowment between the domestic and the international project. The treatments consisted in: (1) making more salient the cost-effectiveness gains associated with offsetting carbon abroad; (2) providing guarantees on the reliability of reforestation programmes; (3) stressing local ancillary benefits associated with domestic offset projects. We found that stressing the cost-effectiveness of the reforestation programme abroad did increase its support, the economic argument in favour of offsetting abroad being otherwise overlooked by participants. We relate this finding to the recent literature on the drivers of public support for climate policies, generally pointing to a gap between people's preferences and economists’ prescriptions.

Human health impacts of climate change as a catalyst for public engagement

Purpose This paper aims to clarify the relationship between climate change, its negative impacts on human health and its role in catalysing public engagement for climate policies. It aims to increase public support for climate-mitigation strategies by showing the medical case for negative climate-induced health impacts, the economic burden it entails and the public response to climate change that may be expected when health frames are used. Design/methodology/approach The paper reviews medical, economic and behavioural studies focusing on climate-induced health impacts, its economic costs and its potential for catalysing public engagement for climate policy. Findings The paper provides empirical insights about the various direct and indirect effects of climate change on human health which includes both physical impacts (infectious and non-infectious diseases) and non-physical impacts (mental disorders and reduced labour productivity). Extreme events such as storms, floods and droughts further seriously affect the health of many people, as they restrict food production and water supply. Economic damage costs of climate-induced health impacts are underestimated. Together, natural science, medical and economic studies warrant giving more attention to health in public debates on climate change. The more so as evidence of behavioural studies suggests that the use of health frames reinforces public concern for climate issues. Originality/value This paper argues that climate-induced health impacts and their economic costs should be given more serious attention in discussions about climate-mitigation strategies. They can augment public support for climate policy.

Could more civil society involvement increase public support for climate policy-making? Evidence from a survey experiment in China

Abstract Governments need the support of their citizens in order to be able to adopt and implement ambitious environmental protection policies. Recent research on liberal democratic systems has found evidence that increased civil society organization involvement can help increase the popular legitimacy of (that is, public support for) such policy-making. We are interested in whether this finding is also relevant to other types of political systems. To find out we implemented a survey experiment in China (N = 932). The empirical focus is on climate policy, a paradigmatic global governance effort, in which China, the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases, plays a key role. The results show that people welcome the involvement of civil society actors – with the exception of business civil society organizations – in climate policy-making, though most participants in our survey experiment did not favor civil society organizations over government agencies. They also show, however, that moving from non-inclusion to inclusion of civil society organizations improves people’s assessment of transparency and representational quality of climate governance (two key facets of input or procedural legitimacy) by 14 and 24% respectively. Our findings suggest that – even though few civil society organizations are currently independent from government in China – increased civil society organizations involvement in climate policy-making could contribute to enhancing public support for climate policy. In view of great challenges China faces in implementing its Intended Nationally Determined Contribution (INDC) within the Paris Agreement framework, its climate policy could thus benefit from greater involvement of civil society organizations.

Simple reframing unlikely to boost public support for climate policy

New surveys show strategies to garner public support based on the traditional justification of reducing the risks of climate change remain the most effective. This contrasts with recent studies that suggest emphasizing co-benefits is more fruitful.

What explains public support for climate policies? A review of empirical and experimental studies

The lack of broad public support prevents the implementation of effective climate policies. This article aims to examine why citizens support or reject climate policies. For this purpose, we provide a cross-disciplinary overview of empirical and experimental research on public attitudes and preferences that has emerged in the last few years. The various factors influencing policy support are divided into three general categories: (1) social-psychological factors and climate change perception, such as the positive influences of left-wing political orientation, egalitarian worldviews, environmental and self-transcendent values, climate change knowledge, risk perception, or emotions like interest and hope; (2) the perception of climate policy and its design, which includes, among others, the preference of pull over push measures, the positive role of perceived policy effectiveness, the level of policy costs, as well as the positive effect of perceived policy fairness and the recycling of potential policy revenues; (3) contextual factors, such as the positive influence of social trust, norms and participation, wider economic, political and geographical aspects, or the different effects of specific media events and communications. Finally, we discuss the findings and provide suggestions for future research.Policy relevancePublic opinion is a significant determinant of policy change in democratic countries. Policy makers may be reluctant to implement climate policies if they expect public opposition. This article seeks to provide a better understanding of the various factors influencing public responses to climate policy proposals. Most of the studied factors include perceptions about climate change, policy and its attributes, all of which are amenable to intervention. The acquired insights can thus assist in improving policy design and communication with the overarching objective to garner more public support for effective climate policy.

Predicting support of climate policies by using a protection motivation model

Taiwan aims to reduce its estimated 2020 CO2 emissions by 45%. Attaining this goal will require strong policies and public support. In this study, a psychological model was tested to predict how Taiwanese citizens would support ten policies that mitigate or adapt to climate change. The model is an expansion of Protection Motivation Theory (PMT [Rogers, R. W. (1983). Cognitive and physiological processes in fear-based attitude change: A revised theory of protection motivation. In J. Cacioppo & R. Petty (Eds.), Social psychophysiology: A sourcebook (pp. 153–176). New York, NY: Guilford]) involving responsibility and the subjective effectiveness of alternative solutions (SEAS) as additional variables. Data were collected after conducting two surveys in Taiwan that involved a total of 394 respondents. The results indicated that perceived responsibility and SEAS predicted the support of only one to three of the policies. Regarding the PMT variables, severity and vulnerability did not affect the support of almost all policies. Policy support was primarily affected by the other three PMT variables: self-efficacy, response efficacy, and relative benefit. These three variables significantly affected most policies, accounting for 34–73% of the variance in public support. This suggests that PMT facilitates understanding of public support for climate policies.

Coding Error or Statistical Embellishment? The Political Economy of Reporting Climate Aid

To benefit from a wide-spread public support for climate policy, aid agencies strive to show the climate relevance of their development activities. Using project-level aid data and country-level political data for 21 DAC donors from 1995 to 2007, we test whether this may lead to politically motivated misreporting. Through keyword search in individual project descriptions and complementary hand-coding we assess all aid activities for their actual climate change-related content, and thereby construct our most relevant control variables. Econometric results reveal that indeed, project coding is influenced systematically by the donor governments’ ideological orientation as well as by national voters’ environmental preferences.

Does the framing of climate policies make a difference to public support? Evidence from UK marginal constituencies

Public support for climate policies is essential to underpin their credibility, but evidence suggests that an environmental basis for that support is not strong. It has been suggested that framing climate policies in other terms, such as energy security or job creation, will build a more sustainable political basis for bold climate policies. This approach is explored using data from a survey in 157 UK marginal constituencies. Framing does make a difference to support for the expansion of renewable energy, but not to support for policies on energy efficiency and financial assistance to developing countries. The data also show key differences in levels of support for policies between different socio-demographic and voter groups.