Understanding public acceptability of climate policies in Europe

Shouyu Zhang, Susana Ferreira and Berna Karali

Climate Policy, 2025, vol. 25, issue 5, 725-740

Abstract: Urgent and decisive government action to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions is more likely when the proposed measures are popular among the public. This paper compares the drivers of European public support for three alternative policies to combat climate change: carbon taxation, renewable energy subsidies, and minimum energy efficiency standards that apply to household appliances. We combine survey data with regional socio-economic and environmental indicators to provide a comprehensive, comparative analysis of policy acceptance that accounts for the geographic context in which these policies would be implemented. By comparing the drivers among three climate policies, we identify a rural-urban gap in predicting public perception of carbon taxation, which does not exist in the other policies. We also found a positive relationship between regional exposure to fine particular matter (PM2.5) and public support for climate policy, providing novel insights into the influence of environmental factors on public perceptions. This research highlights the importance of environmental and socio-economic context in predicting climate policy acceptance and offers valuable implications for policymakers seeking to garner public support for effective climate change mitigation strategies.PM2.5 exposure is positively related to European public support for renewable energy subsidies and minimum energy efficiency standards, but not with public support for carbon taxation.European governments need to increase public confidence in the political system to win public support for a carbon tax.A stronger macroeconomic situation, possibly by mitigating concerns about the economic costs of a carbon tax, is positively correlated to the public acceptability of carbon taxation.Rural residents, who are more dependent on fossil fuels and have higher electricity demands, are more likely to oppose increased fossil fuel taxes.Older people tend to favour minimum energy efficiency standards over other climate policies.

Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/14693062.2024.2415371 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

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:taf:tcpoxx:v:25:y:2025:i:5:p:725-740

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/tcpo20

DOI: 10.1080/14693062.2024.2415371

Access Statistics for this article

Climate Policy is currently edited by Professor Michael Grubb

More articles in Climate Policy from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().