Assessing the Acceptability of Climate Policy From Three Perspectives: Policy-Specific Beliefs, Policy Characteristics, and Individual Characteristics

To meet the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement, effective climate policies need to be implemented. However, climate policies are often not implemented due to low (expected) acceptability among citizens. To gain insight into acceptability levels of various policy types, we examined how individual characteristics (personal values and concern about climate change), policy-specific beliefs (perceived effectiveness and fairness) and policy characteristics (e.g., communicative, financial, and legal) affect the acceptability of climate policies. A representative sample of the Dutch population (n = 1,536) completed an online questionnaire containing 18 climate policy measures. Results showed that perceived fairness and effectiveness were the main predictors of policy acceptability. Concern about climate change and personal values were of lesser importance. Communicative policies were evaluated as the most acceptable, most effective, and among the fairest policies, while financial policies were perceived as somewhat acceptable and fair and were also among the most effective policies. Legislative policies received the lowest scores on all ratings. Further, participants perceived punishing, push measures as more acceptable, effective, and fair compared to rewarding, pull measures. Packages combining a push and a pull measure received the lowest acceptability and fairness ratings but were seen as somewhat effective. This suggests that not only the type of policy but the policy itself and the targeted domain and behaviour also play a role. Additionally, policies targeting efficiency behaviour were perceived as more acceptable, effective, and fair compared to policies targeting curtailment behaviour.