Environmental Trade-Offs in Public Opinion: Prioritization for Biodiversity Loss Vs. Climate Change Policy Instruments

One obstacle to implementation is policy support, or resistance, as exemplified by the Yellow Vest protests against carbon taxation in France and local protests against national park implication. In the case of climate policies, public opinion research has proliferated, leading to systematic reviews and meta-studies aimed at understanding underlying attitudes and identifying design features that increase support. Public opinion toward biodiversity policies, while less extensively studied, is a rapidly growing field, drawing on insights from land conflict research and in-depth case studies. However, we know very little about how the public prioritizes biodiversity versus climate change policy instruments when forced to choose between the two. Some environmental policy instruments can be successfully integrated and implemented simultaneously, while others may conflict, making one policy’s effectiveness undermine the other. For example, planting carbon-capturing trees may crowd out native species, thereby prioritizing climate goals at the expense of biodiversity. The extent to which the public prioritizes such environmental trade-offs remains unclear. With a survey conducted March 2025 resulting in a total of 10,000 representative participants randomly selected from the Swedish Population Registry, we answer the following questions: Do people prefer policy instruments that address climate change or biodiversity loss? Is this preference sensitive to specific industry areas (forestry, mining, and agriculture)? Finally, in what ways does prioritization for climate or biodiversity correlate with underlying attitudinal factors such as concern for biodiversity and climate, generalized policy beliefs, and left-right ideology?