The public demands more climate action, not less

Thijs Bouman (), Linda Steg and Tom Dietz
Additional contact information
Thijs Bouman: University of Groningen
Linda Steg: University of Groningen
Tom Dietz: Michigan State University

Climatic Change, 2024, vol. 177, issue 11, No 9, 8 pages

Abstract: Abstract In this “biggest election year in history”, new governments are elected for around 50% of the world population. Election outcomes will substantially impact global climate action. Stronger governmental climate action is urgently needed, but political support for such action seems to weaken with the rise of the new right. Many new-right politicians oppose climate policy, and other politicians weaken their climate ambitions in response. However, substantial evidence shows that weakened support for governmental climate action opposes what the public wants. Across countries, demographics, and most political ideologies, majorities demand more—not less—governmental climate action. We explain in this essay why votes for new-right political parties should not be interpreted as votes against governmental climate action. Moreover, we explain why structural misperceptions of public opinion and biased political decision-making can lead politicians to oppose governmental climate actions that have strong public support. Finally, we propose ways in which political actors and policies could better represent what the public wants. These include ensuring that climate policies are designed to avoid negative impacts on other issues people also care about (e.g., job security, costs of living, trust in institutions, migration), or even improve such issues, while more actively highlighting the positive impacts of climate policy.

Keywords: Climate action; Climate policy; Public opinion; Election; Misperception (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10584-024-03832-0 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:climat:v:177:y:2024:i:11:d:10.1007_s10584-024-03832-0

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/10584

DOI: 10.1007/s10584-024-03832-0

Access Statistics for this article

Climatic Change is currently edited by M. Oppenheimer and G. Yohe

More articles in Climatic Change from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().