Chapter 2 examined why citizens support or reject climate policies. Given that research on this topic is quickly expanding, it is difficult for academics and practitioners to keep pace. The chapter represents the first study that provides a review of this literature. The examination of empirical and experimental research revealed various factors influencing policy attitudes, which were divided into three general categories: (1) climate change perception and associated social-psychological factors, such as the positive influences of left-wing political orientation, egalitarian worldviews, environmental and self-transcendent values, knowledge, risk perception, or emotions like interest and hope; (2) the perception of climate policy and its design, which includes, among others, the preference of pull over push measures, perceived (in)effectiveness of policy particular instruments, the personal costs associated with instruments, the effect of perceived fairness of instruments, and the recycling of any revenues to poor households; (3) contextual factors, such as the influence of social trust, norms and
142
participation, the role of wider economic, political and geographical aspects, and the effects of specific media events and communications.
Chapter 3 examined public attitudes on and beliefs about economic growth, the environment and prosperity. Prior opinion surveys typically offered a simple dichotomous choice between growth and environmental protection. This study extends previous work by examining public views on a wider range of aspects of the growth debate. I conducted an online questionnaire survey including a country-wide, representative sample of 1008 Spanish citizens. Using factor analysis, I identified six distinct dimensions of public attitudes, referred to as: prosperity with growth; environmental limits to growth; general optimism; wrong priority; overrated GDP; and governmental control. Furthermore, it was found that most respondents favor GDP growth rates of more than 3%. A majority views growth and environmental sustainability as compatible (green growth), while about one-third prefers either ignoring growth as a policy aim (agrowth), or stopping growth altogether (degrowth).
Only very few people want unconditional growth (growth-at-all-costs). About one-third of the respondents believe that growth may be never-ending. I examined how support for, and disagreement with, the various statements on growth relate to each other, as well as how they are influenced by socio-demographic, knowledge and ideology/values variables. So-called conservation values like tradition emerged as the most consistent predictor of various favorable attitudes towards growth. Overall, the findings can inform public debates about the growth paradigm and its potential alternatives by providing a more nuanced understanding of public opinion. A number of directions for future research were suggested, including modifying poll questions on growth and environment through offering a more diverse set of response options.
Chapter 4 derived further insights into public opinion about economic growth, the environment and prosperity. This was done by compiling a large set of existing survey data from multiple studies, countries and years, which permitted an innovative integrated analysis.
143
The main findings of the study are: (1) 60-85% of respondents in the EU and the USA see economic growth and the environment as compatible when explicitly asked about it; (2) When people have to choose, environmental protection is prioritized in the majority of studied countries, which moreover seems to be a relatively stable attitude over time; (3) The public has a limited factual knowledge of key data, such as past, realized GDP growth rates, or the consequences of exponential growth on future income; (4) People tend to see societal rather than personal benefits from economic growth; (5) They are fairly pessimistic about the future of economic growth. The comparison of different studies indicates that different question wordings and formats can considerably influence the results. Overall, the article contributes to an improved understanding of public attitudes on the relationship between economic growth and the environment.
Chapter 5 zoomed in on the long-standing academic debate about economic growth versus the environment. To investigate scientific opinion on various aspects of this debate, I conducted the first web-based questionnaire survey among researchers on this topic. The 814 respondents have a wide range of backgrounds, including growth theory, general economics, environmental economics, ecological economics, environmental social sciences, and natural sciences. The survey results indicated a wide variety of opinion on almost every posed question. Furthermore, it seems that researchers are more skeptical about growth in the context of a concrete problem like the compatibility with the 2°C climate target than when considering environmental problems more generally. The results indicate polarization of views among mainstream economists on the one hand, and ecological economists, environmental social and natural scientists on the other. Moreover, many respondents suggested ideology, values and worldviews as important reasons for general disagreement.
This finding is supported by the statistical analysis, which shows that researchers’ political orientation consistently and strongly correlates with all expressed views on growth. Expertise played a negligible role in explaining researchers’ views.
144
Some general conclusions beyond the individual chapters are worth noting. Taking a quick glance at the results of both original surveys on economic growth and the environment reveals that public opinion about the desirability of economic growth is closer to the mainstream view in economics, as expressed for example in the favored growth-environment strategy. At the same time, public views and those of ecological economists and environmental scientists are similar on certain questions, such as regarding the doubt about the possibility of never-ending growth. In addition, the growth paradigm seems to be generally questioned more on social than on environmental grounds.
An important insight from the two original surveys on economic growth and the chapter on climate policy is that both public and scientific opinion is significantly associated with political ideology and various types of value orientations. This is consistent with a recent large meta-analysis of climate change opinions which showed that the effect of ideologies, values and worldviews trump those of every other influencing variables (e.g., knowledge) (Hornsey et al., 2016). In general, this suggests that questions surrounding climate change and the contested relationship between economic growth and the environment are of a scientific as well as cultural nature.