Decarbonisation policy support: An international study on the interaction of ideological factors and policy types

Description

Carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions need to be drastically reduced to tackle climate change and to stay within the 1.5C target warming as agreed in the Paris Agreement. Governments around the world, especially those in high-emitting countries, thus need to implement policies targeted at significantly and effectively reducing CO2 emissions.

Policymakers have a variety of policy types or policy instruments available, ranging from command-and-control policies (e.g., banning carbon-intensive processes) or market-based instruments (e.g., using taxes or subsidies to incentivise sustainable behaviour) to information-based (e.g., using a traffic light system to indicate carbon emissions related to products) and voluntary measures (e.g., supporting voluntary carbon offset programmes). Yet, without sufficient public support for these policy instruments, policymakers will be reluctant to implement them.

This project is funded by Leeds University Business School’s Climate Change and Environmental Research Fund.

Research overview

A collaboration between Leeds University Business School and the Institute for Transport Studies, the research project aims to shed more light on public support for different types of decarbonization policy proposals across the globe.

Administrating large-scale, representative surveys in six countries – Brazil, China, Germany, South Africa, the United Kingdom and the USA – we are able to investigate:

1. Variations in support for different instruments for the largest emitter on each continent

2. Differences in support between countries of the global North and South

3. The influence of ideological factors on policy support at an individual and country level

4. Differences in public support across policies targeting various sectors.

Contact

Dr Felix Schulz