Material Life Satisfaction Increases Willingness to Engage in Costly Climate Action

Résumé fourni par la source

Addressing climate change requires sustained public support for policies and willingness to engage in actions that may incur personal costs. Understanding the social conditions under which citizens are willing to support such measures is important for assessing the feasibility of ambitious climate action. Using data from a large, population-weighted survey of Dutch citizens (N = 22,749) and covariate adjustments informed by directed acyclic graphs, we estimate the effect of different facets of life satisfaction on willingness to contribute 1% of monthly household income to address climate change. We find a strong effect of material life satisfaction: individuals who are very satisfied with their material conditions are more than three times more likely to be willing to contribute than those who are not satisfied at all. In contrast, satisfaction with social life, physical health, and mental health show weak or negligible independent effects on willingness once material life satisfaction and relevant background variables are taken into account. We discuss the implications of our results for the design and acceptability of climate policies that are perceived as placing burdens on households.

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