Norm or Burden? How Nationally Determined Contributions Shape Public Support for Climate Change Policy

• In Event: Student Research: Public Attitudes, Communication, and Policy Acceptance

Abstract

Public support serves as a vital political foundation for the formulation, implementation, and sustainability of climate policies. Existing studies have predominantly explained public support from the perspective of policy design, focusing on instrumental attributes such as policy costs, fairness, and effectiveness. However, two-level games theory contends that domestic policies are not formulated in isolation but are deeply embedded in the dual interaction between global governance and domestic governance. As emission targets pledged under the Paris Agreement, Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) may shape how citizens interpret national climate policies, thereby influencing public support. Yet how the public interprets policy implications conveyed by NDCs remains underexplored.This paper conceptualizes NDCs as a composite political signal. On one hand, the public may evaluate pledge ambition based on climate equity, judging whether a country shoulders obligations matching its responsibilities and capacity, and view more ambitious pledges as binding international norms that warrant compliance. On the other, the public may interpret pledge ambition primarily through the lens of policy costs and future constraints, seeing it as a signal of additional economic burdens. This study examines how the domestic political effects of NDCs emerge from the competition between these two pathways and are shaped by national attributes and policy contexts.This study matches cross-national survey data on public support for climate policies from 2022 to 2023 with country-level NDC indicators (N = 49,530; 58 countries) and tests the hypotheses using hierarchical linear modeling. Two types of pledge ambition indicators are employed: absolute reduction targets and fair responsibility-sharing targets. Comparisons between Annex I and non-Annex I countries identify how differing historical responsibilities and public expectations shape the political meanings citizens ascribe to NDCs.Results show a consistent negative correlation between absolute reduction targets and public support, while fair responsibility-sharing targets show no robust main effect. GDP per capita strengthens the negative impact, whereas government trust and environmental motivation alleviate it. In Annex I countries, both pathways coexist: absolute targets negatively affect support while fair targets positively influence it, with the burden effect prevailing. In non-Annex I countries, NDC effects are weak and unstable; public attitudes are driven more by development and governance conditions than national pledges.Findings show that the public tends to perceive NDCs as signals of policy costs rather than international norms to abide by, and this pattern manifests differently across Annex I and non-Annex I countries. This paper contributes to the debate on two-level games between global governance and domestic politics: while existing research largely treats public interpretation as a unidirectional norm-driven process, this paper demonstrates that norm and burden pathways coexist and compete, challenging simplified assumptions about the domestic effects of international commitments and revealing the inherent heterogeneity of public interpretation within the two-level games dynamic. For policymakers, this implies framing climate pledges in ways that address concerns about fairness and perceived policy costs more explicitly, while attending carefully to the interaction between international commitments and domestic policy.

Authors

• Linsheng He, Tsinghua University
  Non-Presenting Co-Author

• ZHIHAN WANG, Beijing Normal University, School of Government
  Presenting Author

• Yue Guo, Beijing Normal University, School of Government
  Non-Presenting Co-Author