This study examines whether the increasing warning signs over the last decade that the earth is warming are matched by citizens’ demand for stronger policy action. Specifically, it addresses three important questions:
(i) how much citizens are willing to pay for reducing CO2 emissions,
(ii) whether citizens’ willingness to pay (WTP) has changed over the past decade, and
(iii) whether political polarization has increased or decreased when it comes to opinions on climate policies and preferences for decreasing CO2 emissions.
Using identical surveys a decade apart, this study examines how attitudes and willingness to pay (WTP) for climate policies have changed in the United States, China, and Sweden. This comparison with consistent methodology provides a unique opportunity to investigate whether attitudes and WTP have changed both within each country and across the three countries over the decade since the Copenhagen Accord.
All three countries exhibit an increased willingness to pay for climate mitigation. Ten years ago, Sweden had a larger fraction of believers in anthropogenic climate change and a higher WTP for mitigation, but today the national averages are more similar. Although this study finds convergence in public support for climate policy across countries, there is considerable divergence in both WTP and climate attitudes within countries. Political polarization explains part of this divergence.