Preferences for Distributional Impacts of Climate Policy

Purpose This paper aims to study how climate change concern, political trust, and generalised trust are associated with public support for coercive and voluntary climate policies. Understanding these dynamics is critical for crafting climate policies that gain sufficiently broad public support, ensuring their longevity and efficacy. Design/methodology/approach This study analyses data from a probability sample of 2,169 respondents collected in Finland in 2022. The data analysis was conducted using an ordered probit regression model. This study also examines interaction effects to understand how political and generalised trust modify the impact of climate change concern on support for both coercive and voluntary climate policy measures. Findings The analysis indicates that higher levels of both climate change concern and political trust are associated with more support for climate policies, whether coercive or voluntary. Higher generalised trust is associated with more support for voluntary policies, particularly among those with lower levels of climate concern. Conversely, political trust significantly increases the likelihood of supporting coercive measures, irrespective of the level of climate concern. Originality/value This study contributes to the understanding of how different trust dimensions intersect with climate change concern to shape public support for coercive and voluntary climate policies. By acknowledging the roles of these factors, policymakers can tailor strategies to enhance public acceptance and the effectiveness of climate actions. Moreover, instead of exploring individual measures, by examining coercive and voluntary climate policies as entities the study provides new insights into the study of attitudes on climate policy.

What are the roles of bottom-up and top-down signals in the formation of climate change policy preferences? Using a large sample of American residents (n = 1520) and combining an experimental manipulation of descriptive social norms with two choice experiments, we investigate the effects of descriptive norms and policy endorsements by key political actors on climate policy support. We study these questions in two areas considered to be central in a number of decarbonization pathways: the phase-out of fossil fuel-powered cars and the deployment of carbon capture and storage. Our study provides two important results. First, social norm interventions may be no silver bullet for increasing citizens’ support for ambitious climate policies. In fact, we not only find that climate policy support is unaffected by norm messages communicating an increased diffusion of pro-environmental behaviors, but also that norm messages communicating the prevalence of non-sustainable behaviors decrease policy support. Second, in the presence of policy endorsements by political parties, citizens’ trust in these parties influences their support for climate policies. This study contributes to research in behavioral climate policy by examining the impact of descriptive norms and elite cues on climate policy support.

It's political: How the salience of one's political identity changes climate change beliefs and policy support

When the design of climate policy meets public acceptance: An adaptive multiplex network model

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

Oil Trade and Climate Policy

What explains the choice of corporate political strategy in environmental politics? Drawing on recent models of actor strategy formation in political economy, this article argues that basic material interests of firms are translated into strategies in the context of institutional environments. I advance a typological model that posits how distributional effects—positive versus negative—and perceived regulatory pressure—low versus high—interact in leading firms to adopt one of four ideal-type strategies: opposition, hedging, support, and non-participation. This article examines the model through the case of corporate strategies in the making of the European Union’s Emission Trading Scheme. The article contributes to theory-building on business strategy in environmental politics by offering a probabilistic explanatory model, and it flags hedging strategies as an increasingly prevalent form of business behavior.

There has been a growing focus on uncertainty as a distinct concept in the risk literature. This paper is concerned with how those involved in the design and implementation of climate change policy conceptualize risk and uncertainty. Based on interviews with policy and industry elites in Australia, China and the UK, it finds that participants did not distinguish between “risk” and “uncertainty” in their conceptualization of climate threats. For the majority of them, politics was the most significant source of risk and uncertainty in climate policy, but delegation of otherwise political decisions to the market was seen as the best solution. The conclusion suggests that the conceptual distinction between risk and uncertainty is less important, for policy and industry elites, than the need to develop mechanisms that account for both persistent scientific uncertainties as well as interpretive and moral ambiguities in climate policy design and implementation.

Rethinking Environmental Federalism in a Warming World

This article analyzes how U.S. climate change politics and policy making are changing in the public, private and civil society sectors, and how such changes are likely to influence U.S. federal policies. It outlines the current status of U.S. climate change action and explores four overlapping pathways of policy change: (1) the strategic demonstration of the feasibility of climate change action; (2) the creation and expansion of markets; (3) policy diffusion and learning; and (4) the creation and promulgation of norms about the need for more aggressive climate change action. These four pathways seek to fruitfully draw from rationalist and constructivist approaches to policy analysis, without collapsing or confusing the different logics. Building on this analysis, it predicts that future federal U.S. climate policy will include six major components: (1) A national cap on GHG emissions; (2) A national market based cap‐and‐trade GHG emissions trading scheme; (3) Mandatory renewable energy portfolio standards; (4) Increased national product standards for energy efficiency; (5) Increased vehicle fleet energy efficiency standards; and (6) Increased federal incentives for research and development on energy efficiency issues and renewable energy development. In addition, expanding federal climate policy may bring about significant changes in U.S. foreign policy as U.S. international re‐engagement on climate change is likely to occur only after the development of more significant federal policy.

Climate change is one of the most challenging problems of our times. To be effective, climate policies need to receive citizens’ approval. The objective of this article is to examine both the extent of individuals’ support for different climate policies and key determinants of policy support. To this end, an overview of the related empirical literature is provided. The article shows that the empirical literature on public climate policy support is very diverse in terms of concepts, measures of policy support and empirical approaches. Moreover, the bulk of the existing empirical literature has a strong U.S. focus. The article concludes that public support for climate policies is rather a matter of climate change beliefs and party identification, and not primarily a question of socio-demographic background. The article also offers suggestions for future research as well as policy recommendations.

Climate change and climate policies will affect poverty reduction efforts through direct and immediate impacts on the poor and by affecting factors that condition poverty reduction, such as economic growth. This paper explores this relation between climate change and policies and poverty outcomes by examining three questions: the (static) impact on poor people's livelihood and well-being; the impact on the risk for non-poor individuals to fall into poverty; and the impact on the ability of poor people to escape poverty. The paper proposes four channels that determine household consumption and through which households may escape or fall into poverty (prices, assets, productivity, and opportunities). It then discusses whether and how these channels are affected by climate change and climate policies, focusing on the exposure, vulnerability, and ability to adapt of the poor (and those vulnerable to poverty). It reviews the existing literature and offers three major conclusions. First, climate change is likely to represent a major obstacle to a sustained eradication of poverty. Second, climate policies are compatible with poverty reduction provided that (i) poverty concerns are carefully taken into account in their design and (ii) they are accompanied by the appropriate set of social policies. Third, climate change does not modify how poverty policies should be designed, but it creates greater needs and more urgency. The scale issue is explained by the fact that climate will cause more frequent and more severe shocks; the urgency, by the need to exploit the window of opportunity given to us before climate impacts are likely to substantially increase.

Climate change generates considerable uncertainty about impacts, vulnerability, and broad‐scale change to society. While scientific consensus is well established, social consensus—on what the issues are, what it means for nations, communities, and every life, and what we ought to do about it as a society and civilization—is harder to achieve. This “human” layer of the climate challenge is crucial yet seldom sufficiently integrated into climate action. Publics can struggle to connect their climate concern with support for climate action, while others exhibit fear, resistance, forms of denial, and pushback against climate policies. This occurs against a cultural backdrop of increasing polarization, particularly in pluralistic liberal democracies like Canada. This paper presents qualitative research in the Canadian context in which climate actors across sectors examined the current sensemaking challenges regarding climate change. Sensemaking refers to how people mentally, emotionally, cognitively, and socially construct an understanding of the world. Respondents discussed key psycho‐social and sensemaking challenges regarding climate action, many of which pertain to the emotions provoked around perceptions of a ‘just transition,’ such as feeling left behind by unfair distribution of benefits from climate action investments and feeling frustration, lack of autonomy, and loss of agency regarding changes in identity and livelihoods due to climate action. The paper submits that a better understanding of these psycho‐social and sensemaking challenges—specifically, those involving affect, emotions, worldviews, and identity—could help generate agency, uptake, and social support of climate practices and policies, as well as lessen the divides between anti‐ and pro‐climate action views.

Despite an increase in climate-driven natural disasters, Australia has been slow to adopt pro-climate policy, partially due to resistance on the political right. Measures of ideology beyond the left-right continuum, including conventionalism, dominance and anti-egalitarianism, predict climate change-related attitudes in several Anglophone nations. A consistent additional predictor is partisan affiliation with specific political parties. The aim of this study (N = 390) was to compare the associations of right-wing ideological beliefs and identification with major political parties (Liberal, Labor and Greens parties) with climate mitigation and adaptation policy support, to determine whether either or both underpin support for climate policy in the Australian context. Path analysis revealed that anti-egalitarianism (negatively) and Greens partisan identity (positively) predicted both forms of climate policy support, whereas Liberal partisan identity and conventionalism only (negatively) predicted support for mitigation but not adaptation policy. Neither dominance nor Labor partisan identity predicted either type of policy support. Results indicate that some partisan identifications sit alongside ideological beliefs as unique drivers of climate policy support. Applying a social identity framework, we suggest that climate policy shifts within political parties could lead some partisans to alter their support in line with these changes.

Despite an increase in climate-driven natural disasters, Australia has been slow to adopt pro-climate policy, partially due to resistance on the political right. Measures of ideology beyond the left-right continuum of specific right-wing ideological constructs, including conventionalism, dominance and anti-egalitarianism, predict climate change-related attitudes in several Anglophone nations. A consistent additional predictor is partisan affiliation. The aim of this study (N = 402) was to compare the associations of relevant right-wing ideological beliefs and social identification with major political parties (Liberal, Labor and Greens parties) with climate mitigation and adaptation policy support, to determine whether either or both underpin support for climate policy in the Australian context. Path analysis revealed that anti-egalitarianism (negatively) and Greens partisan identity (positively) predicted both forms of climate policy support, whereas Liberal partisan identity and conventionalism only (negatively) predicted support for mitigation but not adaptation policy. Neither dominance nor Labor partisan identity predicted either type of policy support. Results indicate that some partisan identifications sit alongside ideological beliefs as unique drivers of climate policy support. Applying a social identity framework, we suggest that climate policy shifts within political parties could lead some partisans to alter their support in line with these changes.