Public acceptability of climate change mitigation policies: a discrete choice experiment

Abstract

Our study examines public acceptability of the EU's future mitigation targets. Using the discrete choice experiment, we elicit the preferences of about 4,098 respondents from the Czech Republic, Poland, and the United Kingdom for the GHG emission reduction policies that differ in four attributes: emission reduction target, burden sharing across the EU Member States, the distribution of costs within each country, and cost. The three specific reduction targets we analysed correspond to the EU 2050 Roadmap and deep decarbonisation policy (80% target), the climate-energy 2014 targets (40% target), and the status quo policy (20% target); each will result in a specific emission trajectory by 2050. Our results reveal stark differences between the three countries. Czechs would be on average willing to pay around EUR 13 per household and year for the 40% GHG emission reductions by 2030 or EUR 17 for 80% reduction target by 2050, and the citizens of the UK are willing to pay about EUR 40. Conversely, the mean willingness to pay of the Polish household for adopting more stringent targets is not statistically different from zero. The willingness to pay for adopting 40% and 80% targets are not statistically different in any of the examined countries. However, we found that the preferences in all three countries are highly heterogeneous. In addition, we provide an insight into the preferred characteristics of the future GHG emission reduction policies.

The significance of political culture, economic context and instrument type for climate policy support: a cross-national study

“…Furthermore, the perceived consequences of introducing a measure have attracted increasing attention (cf. Drews & van den Bergh, 2015;Ščasný, Zvěřinová, Czajkowski, Kyselá, & Zagórska, 2017). In a recent literature review, Carattini, Baranzini, Thalmann, Varone, and Vöhringer (2017;Carattini, Carvalho, & Fankhauser, 2017) identify a large number of such policy-specific beliefs that help explain why people are averse to carbon taxes specifically.…”

“…A set of recent studies suggest the importance of economic conditions and dependencies (cf. Kenny, 2018;Ščasný et al, 2017). For example, studies of global climate negotiations suggest that oil-producing countries are reluctant to support the introduction of forceful emissions-targets and restrictions on the use of fossil fuels both domestically and on a global level, for fear of losing out economically if a transition to other energy sources becomes a widespread reality (cf.…”

The impact of compensatory measures on public support for carbon taxation: an experimental study in Sweden

“…Another strand of literature suggest that policy attitudes are tied also to the characteristics of the proposed measure itself, and to perceptions of its consequences (cf. Drews & van den Bergh, 2016;Ščasný et al, 2017;Steg et al, 2005). Thus, policy attitudes might change as the design of the policy measure alters, for example when substituting a push-instrument for a pull-instrument, when lowering the level of a proposed tax, or when introducing compensatory measures to counteract distributive effects of a tax (Eriksson, Garvill, & Nordlund, 2006;Jagers & Matti, 2010;Poortinga, Steg, & Vlek, 2004;Steg & Vlek, 1997).…”

“…In the current literature, a large number of factors are proposed to shape policy attitudes, spanning both individual motivation (Schleich, Schwirplies, & Ziegler, 2018;Steg, Dreijerink, & Abrahamse, 2005); political ideology (Feldman & Hart, 2017); institutional, political and interpersonal trust (cf. Dietz, Dan, & Shwom, 2007;Hammar & Jagers, 2006;Harring, 2014;Kallbekken, Garcia, & Korneliussen, 2013); and contextual variables such as degree of political polarization (Linde, 2018), economic conditions and dependencies (Jagers & Matti, in press;Kenny, 2018;Ščasný et al, 2017), political culture (Cherry, García, Kallbekken, & Torvanger, 2014) and quality of government (Harring, 2015).…”

Analysis of Academic Literature on Environmental Valuation

“…Researchers must develop new approaches to deal with new elements in the valuation process. We expect that climate change, as one of the defining challenges of the 21st century, will attract most attention from researchers to propose new approaches in environmental valuation [41,42]. As knowledge and perception are subjective, the intangible aspects must be explicitly considered in the new valuation methods [13].…”