The Role of Emission Intensity of the Job on Workforce’s Climate Policy Support

• In Event: Environmental Policy & Politics

Abstract

Despite the common recognition of the urgency to address climate change, countries' policy response varies significantly, even among most developed economies. Part of that is due to heterogeneous voter sentiments across countries towards environmental policy. Prior public opinion studies have identified demographic characteristics and personal beliefs as primary sources of individuals' policy support. Although these findings are useful for understanding the origin of opinion heterogeneity within a country, they do not necessarily explain the mechanism that leads to cross-national differences.

In this paper, we provide new insights into the determinants of public support for environmental policy—primarily carbon taxation—by highlighting the role of carbon emission intensity linked to people's jobs. As carbon taxes pose concentrated economic costs on higher-emitting industries, we hypothesize that industries' emission intensity influences people’s policy preference through two channels. First, those working in higher-emitting industries might fear potential salary cuts or job losses. Second, those living in a country where higher-emitting industries overall play an essential economic role (e.g., greater structural power gained through their job provision) might fear the national economic loss resulting from the new policy.

We draw on multilevel modeling techniques to investigate these two hypotheses, which involve nested units of analysis (individuals, industries, and countries). Based on data from 21 European countries (the 2016 ESS and Eurostats), we show that emission intensity linked to the industry of one's employment and the structural power exhibited by higher-emitting industries indeed negatively influence individuals' support for carbon taxation policies.

Authors

• Aya Kachi, University of Basel / KAPSARC School of Public Policy

• Malcolm Fairbrother, Uppsala University