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Climate concern and policy acceptance before and after COVID-19

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  • Drews, Stefan
  • Savin, Ivan
  • van den Bergh, Jeroen C.J.M.
  • Villamayor-Tomás, Sergio

Abstract

It remains unclear how COVID-19 has affected public engagement with the climate crisis. According to the finite-pool-of-worry hypothesis, concern about climate change should have decreased after the pandemic, in turn reducing climate-policy acceptance. Here we test these and several other conjectures by using survey data from 1172 Spanish participants who responded before and after the first wave of COVID-19, allowing for both aggregate and within-person analyses. We find that on average climate concern has decreased, while acceptance of most climate policies has increased. At the individual-level, adverse health experiences are unrelated to these changes. The same holds for negative economic experiences, with the exception that unemployment is associated with reduced acceptance of some policies. Complementary to the finite-pool-of-worry test, we examine three additional pandemic-related issues. As we find, (1) higher climate concern and policy acceptance are associated with a belief that climate change contributed to the COVID-19 outbreak; (2) higher policy acceptance is associated with a positive opinion about how the government addressed the COVID-19 crisis; (3) citizens show favorable attitudes to a carbon tax with revenues used to compensate COVID-19-related expenditures. Overall, we conclude there is support for addressing the global climate crisis even during a global health crisis.

Suggested Citation

  • Drews, Stefan & Savin, Ivan & van den Bergh, Jeroen C.J.M. & Villamayor-Tomás, Sergio, 2022. "Climate concern and policy acceptance before and after COVID-19," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 199(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecolec:v:199:y:2022:i:c:s0921800922001690
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2022.107507
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Sara Maestre-Andrés & Stefan Drews & Jeroen van den Bergh, 2020. "Perceived fairness and public acceptability of carbon pricing: a review of the literature," Climate Policy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 19(9), pages 1186-1204, July.
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    Cited by:

    1. Sommer, Stephan & Konc, Théo & Drews, Stefan, 2023. "How Resilient is Public Support for Carbon Pricing? Longitudinal Evidence from Germany," Ruhr Economic Papers 1017, RWI - Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-University Bochum, TU Dortmund University, University of Duisburg-Essen.
    2. Paolo Zeppini & Jeroen C.J.M. van den Bergh, 2023. "Does COVID-19 Help or Harm the Climate? Modelling Long-run Emissions under Climate and Stimulus Policies," GREDEG Working Papers 2023-09, Groupe de REcherche en Droit, Economie, Gestion (GREDEG CNRS), Université Côte d'Azur, France.
    3. Stephan Sommer & Théo Konc & Stefan Drews, 2023. "How resilient is public support for carbon pricing? Longitudinal evidence from Germany," Berlin School of Economics Discussion Papers 0021, Berlin School of Economics.

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