‘Just transition’ policy strategies, public perceptions of climate change, and political participation in Italy.

The online survey experiment includes (a) a survey questionnaire, (b) a treatment and control video with information about two hypothetical climate change policies (a carbon tax and a publically subsidised green infrastructure plan) and (c) the collection of outcome variables. Each individual is only assigned to either the treatment or control video.

The control video has information on how a carbon tax and a green infrastructure plan would work. The treatment video contains the same information as the control video but also includes additional details on how environmental policies can be designed to protect the jobs and income of lower-income households. Specifically, the treatment carbon policy informs respondents that the revenues from the carbon tax can be redistributed based on income, benefiting lower-income households economically. The treatment green infrastructure plan highlights how, in Italy, more jobs would be created than lost in the fossil fuel industry and emphasizes the protection of lower-income families' jobs. The videos are similar in length (1:44 for the control and 2:50 for the treatment). Access to the treatment and control videos (in Italian) and a transcription and translation of the videos are available in the Analysis Plan.

2024-05-26

2024-06-21

- Perceived fairness, importance and feasibility of climate change policies
- Participation to environmental associations and parties
- Voting behaviours

I will estimate the impact of the treatment on various dependent variables, such as perceptions of climate change policies, climate-change-related political participation, and voting behaviours. Each of these will be estimated differently. First, respondents will report their perception of the viability and urgency of climate policies using a slider scale. After the treatment, the survey will present different pairs of contrasting statements, following the graded forced scale question format (Zhang et al., 2023). Respondents will indicate which statement they agree with the most and to what extent using a 0-100 slider scale, where 50 means they are equally distant from both statements. For example, after the treatment and control videos, the questionnaire will ask respondents to choose between ‘The policies against climate change are important, but at the moment, they are too expensive for Italian citizens’ and ‘The costs of the green energy transition are acceptable for Italian citizens’ on a zero to 100 scale (economic feasibility of climate change policy).

Using a similar scale, respondents choose between ‘Right now, Italy has more urgent needs and should not worry too much about climate change’ and ‘Climate change should be the Italian government's top priority right now’ (urgency of climate change policies). Another slider scale question asks to choose between ‘Over the next few years, we can count on the fact that Italian political parties will propose effective policies to tackle climate change’ and ‘Italian political parties will be unable to propose effective policies to tackle climate change in the coming years’ (trust in politicians’ ability for climate action). A final choice is offered between ‘We have reached a point where governments are unable to take any effective action to prevent or reverse the effects of climate change’ and ‘Environmental policies can be an effective tool in combating climate change’ (effectiveness of climate change policies).

After the treatment, further questions investigate whether people might participate in future climate protests and whether they would support existing environmentalist groups active in Italy on a 1 to 10 scale. The groups included are Fridays for Future, Extinction Rebellion, Legambiente, WWF, and Greenpeace. In the political participation section, questions ask how likely people will vote at the next general elections on a scale from 1 to 10 and how likely people are to vote for each of the 9 major Italian parties. Finally, a question asks how important climate change policy is when deciding what party to vote for (Not at all / a little / moderately / a lot / a great deal).

Respondents are asked to watch either the control or the treatment video carefully. The videos explain two hypothetical climate policies using pictures and animations.

All permanent residents in Italy are eligible to participate in the survey experiment and can be randomly selected for the treatment group. Respondents who report that they did not view the video correctly will be excluded.

I report here the transcription and translation of the treatment and control videos in English.

Treament video:

To fight climate change and avoid an ever-warming climate, we need an array of policies. Climate policies can transform the way we produce energy and reduce fuel consumption.

However, these policies also need to protect people’s jobs and incomes. Let’s have a closer look at two possible climate policies to mitigate the effects of climate change.

Let’s start with a policy that combines a tax on carbon emissions to reduce emissions and cash transfers to protect people’s purchasing power. With a carbon tax, all products that emit greenhouse gases would be taxed. For example, the price of gasoline would increase by 10 cents per litre. With a carbon tax, companies and people pay for the greenhouse gases they emit. This pushes them to reduce their emissions. To compensate people for the price increases, the revenues from the carbon tax would be redistributed to all households based on income.

Each adult would receive between 50 and 320 euros per year, proportionate to their income. Low-income households would generally benefit from a carbon tax combined with the aforementioned monetary supports. On the contrary, wealthy individuals would face a disadvantage as they would pay more due to their high fuel consumption. The second policy is a large program of public investment in green infrastructure, which would be financed by additional public spending. A green infrastructure program would bring about the transition in energy infrastructure needed to halt climate change.

In Italy, such a program could create 650,000 jobs in green sectors, such as public transportation, renewable power plants, building insulation, or sustainable agriculture, but 150,000 people could lose their jobs in the fossil fuel industry. Employment policies can be designed to support disadvantaged workers in the fossil fuel industry.

In general, the green transition comes with the potential to transform the economy into a safer world for future generations and reduce pollution. However, the energy transition comes with some costs. Climate policies can be designed to protect poor and middle-class households, as they can have more income with the carbon tax with cash transfers and more jobs with a green infrastructure program.

Control video:

To fight climate change and avoid an ever-warming climate, we need an array of policies. Climate policies can transform the way we produce energy and reduce fuel consumption.

Let’s start with a policy that combines a tax on carbon emissions to reduce CO2 emissions and cash transfers to protect people’s purchasing power. With a carbon tax, all products that emit greenhouse gases would be taxed. For example, the price of gasoline would increase by 10 cents per litre. With a carbon tax, companies and people pay for the greenhouse gases they emit. This pushes them to reduce their emissions.

The second policy is a large program of public investment in green infrastructure, which would be financed by additional public spending. A green infrastructure program would bring about the transition in energy infrastructure needed to halt climate change.

In Italy, this program could fund green industry sectors like public transportation, renewable energy, thermal insulation of buildings, or sustainable energy.

In general, the green transition comes with the potential to reduce pollution, making the world safer for future generations. Policies like the carbon tax and the sustainable infrastructure programme can be implemented to mitigate the harmful effects of climate change.

Online experiment, randomization conducted through built-in software on LimeSurvey. Proportional stratified random sampling is used to ensure that respondents are representative of the Italian general population by age, gender, and region. Strata are calculated from the Italian population census.

Individual participant

No

NA

1000

approx. 500 individuals in the treatment group and 500 in the control group.

The sample size has been determined to ensure an estimated power of 0.8 for most of the observed dependent variables based on the treatment effect observed in a small pilot study of 83 observations (at a significance level of 0.05).