Do economic trade-offs matter in climate policy support? Survey evidence from the United Kingdom and Australia

Effective climate policy is often described to have substantial economic costs. As such, it is critical to understand whether the public perceives climate policy as beneficial or detrimental to the economy and whether this perception is associated with support for climate policy. One of the most desirable relationships between climate policy and the economy is known as decoupling which is the disentanglement of greenhouse gas emissions from economic growth. Existing research on the relationship between decoupling perceptions and climate policy support is almost non-existent and has gaps. Most studies focus on the relationship between the economy and the environment as a whole omitting a specific relationship between climate action and the economy. Current studies also tend to focus on support for a single policy, usually the carbon tax, or a few generic policy tools combined into an index limiting the ability to understand which policies are already seen as complementary to the economic growth and which ones require more framing work to overcome opposition. Our paper addresses these gaps by collecting and analyzing survey data on public perceptions of climate-economy trade-offs in two countries with different decoupling rates, the United Kingdom (UK, n=1,009) and Australia (n=1,029). Our objectives are to assess (1) levels of public support for different types of climate policies, (2) levels of public support for different growth paradigms governments should pursue, and (3) associations between growth paradigm beliefs and support for different climate policies using Stern’s (2000) Attitude-Behaviour-Context theory. Preliminary results show that carbon pricing policies receive the lowest support (44% in the UK and 47% in Australia), while voluntary policies such as government investment, information, and subsidies enjoy the highest support at 63-78% in the UK and 70-79% in Australia. Regulatory policies, such as electric vehicle mandates and electricity regulations, receive moderate support between 45-70% in the UK and 48-75% in Australia. Citizens of both countries prefer the ‘decoupling’ growth paradigm where emissions are disentangled from the economic growth (47-48%), followed by the ‘agrowth’ paradigm (19-21%) where citizens believe emissions should be reduced regardless of the economic impact. The highest support for all climate policies is from ‘agrowth’ citizens. Support for different policy types has unique characteristics. Carbon pricing and regulations are supported by those who are more optimistic about future economic growth whereas support for voluntary policies is associated with being optimistic about future emissions decreases. Further, environmentally active citizens are more likely to support carbon pricing and regulations, while environmentally passive citizens prefer voluntary policies. Finally, individuals who are optimistic about future economic growth and/or future emission reduction show higher support for climate policies in both countries. Overall, our study suggests that individuals support climate policies less if they believe the economy will be negatively affected. Policy-makers should therefore communicate climate policies’ economic and social benefits, in addition to emissions reductions, to increase support for more compulsory pricing and regulatory policies.