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Public acceptance is a precondition for implementing taxes and laws aimed at mitigating climate change. However, it still remains challenging to understand its determinants for the climate community. Here, we use a meta-analytic approach to examine the role of public opinion about climate change taxes and laws. Fifteen variables were examined by synthesizing 89 datasets from 51 articles across 33 countries, with a total sample of 119,465 participants. Among all factors, perceived fairness and effectiveness were the most important determinants. Self-enhancement values and knowledge about climate change showed weak relationships and demographic variables showed only weak or close to zero effects. Our meta-analytic results provide useful insights and have the potential to inform climate change researchers, practitioners and policymakers to better design climate policy instruments.

Climate change is primarily driven by human-caused greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and may therefore be mitigated by changes to human behavior (Clayton et al., 2015; IPCC, 2018). Despite efforts to raise awareness and concern about climate change, GHG emissions continue to rise (IPCC, 2018). Climate change seems to be at odds with the immediate, present threats to which humans are adapted to cope (Gifford et al., 2009; Schultz, 2014; van Vugt et al., 2014). In contrast to immediate dangers, climate change is typically abstract, large scale, slow and often unrelated to the welfare of our daily lives (e.g., Ornstein and Ehrlich, 1989; Gifford, 2011). But there are moments when the consequences of climate change are readily apparent, such as extreme weather events. In the current paper, we examine the impact of personal experience with an extreme weather event, and the impact of this experience on beliefs about climate change, and intentions to take actions that can help prepare for and mitigate the consequences of climate change.

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