Determinants for Accepting Climate Change Mitigation Policies: A Meta-Analysis

Abstract

Public acceptance is a precondition for implementing climate change mitigation policies. What, then, determines acceptance of these policies? Based on 76 datasets from 34 countries, generating a total sample of 146,817 participants, we report a series of meta-analyses assessing the importance of 15 determinants for accepting climate change mitigation policies. Results show the following: (a) Among policy-specific beliefs, perceived fairness is the most important factor. (b) Among climate change beliefs, knowledge about climate change is weakly related to acceptance. Climate change beliefs, environmental concern, and perceived risk of and problems associated with climate change are all related to acceptance. (c) Among psychological factors, trust is most important. (d) Finally, demographic variables show weak or no relationship with acceptance. These results inform climate policy researchers as to which determinants of acceptance to include in future analyses and provide advice to policymakers about which sentiments they should consider when introducing and communicating intended climate policies.

The Effects of Social Protection and Social Cohesion on the Acceptability of Climate Change Mitigation Policies: What Do We (Not) Know in the Context of Low- and Middle-Income Countries?

“…Despite these general findings, gaps exist in the literature. Apart from being considered in separate studies-without focusing on the complete relationships between climate mitigation, social cohesion, and social protection-the analyses presented were conducted mainly in HICs (Bergquist et al 2021) or did not consider the income group division. The few exceptions include the aforementioned literature 2019) including Australia, India, South Africa, the UK, and the US.…”

A systematic review of the psychological distance of climate change: Towards the development of an evidence-based construct

“…As this review shows, people's feelings toward locations will also depend on the assumed timeframe, which must be specified or measured when investigating the spatial dimension of climate impacts. Another example is in the context of policy, where support could be influenced by several factors, such as the location being addressed and the temporal distance of its benefits (Sparkman et al, 2021), but also by variables such as climate justice and fairness (Bergquist, Nilsson, Harring, & Jagers, 2021). Other, currently less represented contexts, could include the role of distance in behaviour, such as the gap between one's actions and their outcomes or the social distance towards those negotiating or protesting about the climate crisis (Wang, 2021).…”

Phasing out coal for 2 °C target requires worldwide replication of most ambitious national plans despite security and fairness concerns

“…Energy security crises, such as the recent disruption of Russian gas supplies to Europe may delay or reverse coal phase-out policies. Adverse distributional effects of coal decline can trigger countervailing domestic resistance [21][22][23] and slow the international diffusion of anti-coal policies particularly if their burden is perceived as unfair [24,25]. Finally, late-adopters may lack capacity to quickly match, least over-perform, the commitments of climate leaders [11,26,27].…”