## sdnea2023002 - Executive Summary

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### Introduction and scope
- Purpose: Use novel international surveys to examine how individual characteristics and beliefs shape climate risk perceptions and preferences for three main climate policies—carbon pricing, regulations, and subsidies for low-carbon technologies and renewable energy.
- Survey timing and context: Conducted in the summer of 2022 when high energy prices and cost-of-living impacts were salient for the public.
- Coverage: Nearly 30,000 respondents across 28 countries, including 20 of the top-25 emitters and 9 of the 25 countries most exposed to climate change.

### Methodology and questionnaire
- Data collection period: July 5 to August 11, 2022.
- Fieldwork and sampling:
  - Online survey administered by YouGov.
  - Respondents drawn from pre-profiled panelists; samples weighted to be representative of each country’s age, gender, education, regional profiles, employment, and socioeconomic status.
  - At least 1,000 individuals interviewed in each country.
  - Surveys administered in local languages to residents 18 and older.
  - Surveys took on average 10–12 minutes to complete.
- Key questionnaire components:
  - Section 1: Socioeconomic and demographic characteristics (age, gender, marital status, household size, education, employment status, income, news source, car ownership, public transportation usage, trust, role of government).
  - Section 2: Concerns about seriousness and urgency of climate change; baseline awareness of policies; open-ended question on attributes of a good climate policy; beliefs on benefits, costs, and incidence.
  - Section 3: Randomized information and incidence treatments to reassess support for carbon pricing:
    - Information treatment: half of respondents received a short text explaining the efficacy of carbon pricing in reducing emissions and creating innovation-friendly incentives.
    - Incidence treatment: cost scenarios framed as personal for half of respondents and general/societal for the other half.
    - Questions on redistributive preferences for revenue recycling and preferences for regulations and subsidies.
  - Section 4: Perceptions of international burden sharing and whether policies must be widely adopted to be effective.
- Limitations noted: Online surveys may be less representative along rural-urban, education, and income lines in many emerging market countries.

### Descriptive statistics on perceptions and exposure
- Climate imminence and exposure:
  - Higher share of respondents in developing economies believe climate change is already happening and personally affecting them.
  - Over 60 percent of respondents in Colombia, Mexico, and the Philippines perceive the personal effects of climate change to be imminent.
  - Only 20 percent in The Netherlands and Norway perceive climate change as personally affecting them right now.
  - Over 10 percent of respondents in the United States and Australia think that climate change will not harm them during their lifetimes.
- Correlates of concern:
  - Concerns about climate change are positively associated with a country’s vulnerability to climate change.
  - On average, greater concern among the more educated, those who support government regulation, and female respondents.
  - Mixed age patterns across countries (e.g., higher concern among younger respondents in Australia and Canada; older respondents more concerned in Argentina).
  - Stronger concerns among respondents who follow traditional news sources (newspaper, television, radio).
  - Opposition to climate policies strongly correlated with lower availability of public transportation and greater reliance on cars.
  - Household income generally not associated with stronger climate concern, with exceptions in Australia, Mexico, the Philippines, and the United States.

### Key empirical findings on policy support (carbon pricing focus)
- Three major predictors of support for carbon pricing:
  - Perceived effectiveness in reducing emissions.
  - Perceived fairness or distributional burden.
  - Perceived co-benefits (improved air quality, health outcomes, new jobs).
- Information and framing effects:
  - Highlighting costs of carbon pricing tends to reduce support.
  - Making policy benefits more salient increases acceptability.
  - Even small amounts of information on policy benefits can engender greater support, though this support may be short-lived if policy trade-offs are not explicit.
- Revenue recycling and incidence:
  - Carbon pricing receives stronger support if revenues are:
    - Redistributed to low-income households.
    - Used to increase social spending on health care and education.
    - Earmarked to fund green infrastructure and low-carbon technologies.
- Opposition drivers:
  - Concerns about policy costs and effectiveness are top reasons for opposition to carbon pricing.
  - Concerns about corruption can reduce support for subsidies for low-carbon technologies and renewables, particularly in emerging market economies.

### Co-benefits, complementary measures, and acceptability
- Co-benefits matter:
  - Improved air quality, health benefits, less road congestion, and job creation resonate strongly and can offset sensitivity to negative price considerations.
- Complementary measures needed to bolster support:
  - Strengthened social protection systems to address distributional concerns.
  - Active labor market policies.
  - Clear and transparent emissions regulations.
  - Supply-side policies to ensure adequate and affordable low-carbon energy supply.
  - Green public financial management systems and attention to government spending efficiency to counter corruption concerns.
- Integrated government strategy: Complementary measures and frameworks are important enablers of mitigation policy acceptability.

### International political economy and burden sharing
- Collective action perceptions:
  - Most respondents across countries think climate policy will be effective only if most countries adopt measures to reduce emissions.
  - In many emerging market economies, respondents believe all countries should pay to address climate change and that burden sharing should be based on current rather than historical emissions—contrasting with many governments’ stated positions.
- Implication: Securing cooperation among countries could induce greater domestic political support for climate action.

### Quantified drivers of variation in support
- Regression framework: Ordinary least squares on z-scores of the dependent variable with country fixed effects; 95 percent confidence intervals computed using country-clustered standard errors.
- Contributions to explained variation in support for carbon pricing:
  - Beliefs in the effectiveness of carbon pricing in reducing emissions and perceptions of policy benefits together account for 45 percent of the variation in support.
  - Equity and distributional concerns account for another 20 percent of the variation.
  - Socioeconomic and demographic characteristics explain less than 5 percent of the overall variation in policy views.
- Other empirical notes:
  - Across countries, 10 to 35 percent of respondents think that carbon pricing will result in widespread job losses.
  - In The Netherlands and the United Kingdom, about 70 percent of respondents believe that low-income earners, the middle class, and small businesses would lose from carbon pricing.
  - Nearly 15 percent of respondents in advanced economies say that they have no opinion or do not know what a good climate policy should aim to achieve.

### Information, treatment effects, and fragility of support
- Large information gaps: fewer than 20 percent of respondents in Indonesia say that they know what a carbon tax is.
- Information interventions:
  - Randomized provision of information about the effectiveness of carbon pricing and the benefits of revenue recycling increases public support for carbon pricing; the effect of the information treatment is statistically significant.
  - People who change their minds after information provision are likely to have held neutral or negative views in the absence of information.
  - The impact of the information intervention is higher in countries where there is little preexisting knowledge of carbon taxes.
- Cost salience effects:
  - When respondents are made aware of potential personal financial trade-offs (increased prices or taxes), support for carbon pricing and subsidies typically falls.
  - Example shifts:
    - In Brazil initial support for carbon pricing was 62 percent, falling to 51 percent once respondents were made aware of the policy impacts.
    - In Türkiye initial support was 56 percent, falling to 48 percent once respondents were made aware of the policy impacts.
  - Support can also increase with information in some countries (for example, Indonesia and Poland).

### Revenue recycling and policy preferences
- Revenue recycling to build support:
  - A majority of respondents think that revenues should be used to help harder-hit low-income households, to increase social spending on health care and education, or be earmarked for low-carbon technologies and renewables.
  - In Canada, Japan, South Korea, and Singapore, a large share of respondents also supports offsetting cuts to other taxes.
  - About a third of respondents in Australia, China, the United States, and Vietnam support assisting workers in affected industries.
  - Wealthier and more educated individuals tend to favor using revenues to fund renewable energy and low-carbon technologies compared with lower-income and less-educated individuals.
- Support for other policies:
  - Subsidies for low-carbon technologies and renewables are universally the most favored climate policy; in Europe and the United States, it is the only policy supported by over half the respondents.
  - Empirical reference: subsidies for low-carbon technologies receive support from more than 55 percent of the sample in high-income countries and over 65 percent of the sample in middle-income countries.

### Policy design and implementation recommendations
- Communication priorities:
  - Provide clear information about climate change impacts, how carbon pricing works, options for revenue recycling, and policy co-benefits.
  - Communicate policy efficacy and trade-offs transparently; explain how carbon pricing can be made progressive.
- Policy design priorities:
  - Emphasize co-benefits in public messaging to sustain support when costs are salient.
  - Use revenue recycling and social protection to address distributional concerns.
  - Ensure transparent and efficient public spending to reduce opposition driven by corruption concerns.
  - Employ integrated measures (labor market policies, supply-side support, transparent regulation) to enhance acceptability and effectiveness.
- Fiscal and institutional recommendations:
  - Green public financial management systems.
  - Improvements in public investment institutions and processes to build low-carbon infrastructure.
  - Ensure budgets and public investment are managed efficiently and effectively.
- International cooperation:
  - Broader-than-expected public support for collective action suggests opportunities to build common ground for international agreements and burden-sharing approaches based on current emissions.
  - One option mentioned for multilateral action is an international carbon price floor that could jump-start emissions reductions.

### Survey sample and scope
- Surveys covered 28 countries.
- Total observations: 28,541.

*Source: IMF staff executive summary (sdnea2023002 - Executive Summary).*

### Executive Summary ......................................................................................................

### sdnea2023002 - Executive Summary ......................................................................................................

### Introduction and scope
- Purpose: Use novel international surveys to examine how individual characteristics and beliefs shape climate risk perceptions and preferences for three main climate policies—carbon pricing, regulations, and subsidies for low-carbon technologies and renewable energy.
- Survey timing and context: Conducted in the summer of 2022 when high energy prices and cost-of-living impacts were salient for the public.
- Coverage: Nearly 30,000 respondents across 28 countries, including 20 of the top-25 emitters and 9 of the 25 countries most exposed to climate change.

### Methodology and questionnaire
- Data collection period: July 5 to August 11, 2022.
- Fieldwork and sampling:
  - Online survey administered by YouGov.
  - Respondents drawn from pre-profiled panelists; samples weighted to be representative of each country’s age, gender, education, regional profiles, employment, and socioeconomic status.
  - At least 1,000 individuals interviewed in each country.
  - Surveys administered in local languages to residents 18 and older.
  - Surveys took on average 10–12 minutes to complete.
- Key questionnaire components:
  - Section 1: Socioeconomic and demographic characteristics (age, gender, marital status, household size, education, employment status, income, news source, car ownership, public transportation usage, trust, role of government).
  - Section 2: Concerns about seriousness and urgency of climate change; baseline awareness of policies; open-ended question on attributes of a good climate policy; beliefs on benefits, costs, and incidence.
  - Section 3: Randomized information and incidence treatments to reassess support for carbon pricing:
    - Information treatment: half of respondents received a short text explaining the efficacy of carbon pricing in reducing emissions and creating innovation-friendly incentives.
    - Incidence treatment: cost scenarios framed as personal for half of respondents and general/societal for the other half.
    - Questions on redistributive preferences for revenue recycling and preferences for regulations and subsidies.
  - Section 4: Perceptions of international burden sharing and whether policies must be widely adopted to be effective.
- Limitations noted: Online surveys may be less representative along rural-urban, education, and income lines in many emerging market countries.

### Selected descriptive statistics on perceptions
- Climate imminence and exposure:
  - Higher share of respondents in developing economies believe climate change is already happening and personally affecting them.
  - Over 60 percent of respondents in Colombia, Mexico, and the Philippines perceive the personal effects of climate change to be imminent.
  - Only 20 percent in The Netherlands and Norway perceive climate change as personally affecting them right now.
  - Over 10 percent of respondents in the United States and Australia think that climate change will not harm them during their lifetimes.
- Correlations and demographic drivers:
  - Concerns about climate change are positively associated with a country’s vulnerability to climate change.
  - On average, greater concern among the more educated, those who support government regulation, and female respondents.
  - Mixed patterns by age across countries (e.g., higher concern among younger respondents in Australia and Canada; older respondents more concerned in Argentina).
  - Stronger concerns among respondents who follow traditional news sources (newspaper, television, radio).
  - Opposition to climate policies strongly correlated with lower availability of public transportation and greater reliance on cars.
  - Household income generally not associated with stronger climate concern, with exceptions in Australia, Mexico, the Philippines, and the United States.

### Key empirical findings on policy support (especially carbon pricing)
- Three major predictors of support for carbon pricing:
  - Perceived effectiveness in reducing emissions.
  - Perceived fairness or distributional burden.
  - Perceived co-benefits (improved air quality, health outcomes, new jobs).
- Information and framing effects:
  - Highlighting costs of carbon pricing tends to reduce support.
  - Making policy benefits more salient increases acceptability.
  - Even small amounts of information on policy benefits can engender greater support, though this support may be short-lived if policy trade-offs are not explicit.
- Revenue recycling and incidence:
  - Carbon pricing receives stronger support if revenues are:
    - Redistributed to low-income households.
    - Used to increase social spending on health care and education.
    - Earmarked to fund green infrastructure and low-carbon technologies.
- Opposition drivers:
  - Concerns about policy costs and effectiveness are top reasons for opposition to carbon pricing.
  - Concerns about corruption can reduce support for subsidies for low-carbon technologies and renewables, particularly in emerging market economies.

### Co-benefits, complementary measures, and public acceptability
- Co-benefits matter:
  - Improved air quality, health benefits, less road congestion, and job creation resonate strongly and can offset sensitivity to negative price considerations.
- Complementary measures needed to bolster support:
  - Strengthened social protection systems to address distributional concerns.
  - Active labor market policies.
  - Clear and transparent emissions regulations.
  - Supply-side policies to ensure adequate and affordable low-carbon energy supply.
  - Green public financial management systems and attention to government spending efficiency to counter corruption concerns.
- Integrated government strategy: Complementary measures and frameworks are important enablers of mitigation policy acceptability.

### International political economy and burden sharing
- Collective action perceptions:
  - Most respondents across countries think climate policy will be effective only if most countries adopt measures to reduce emissions.
  - In many emerging market economies, respondents believe all countries should pay to address climate change and that burden sharing should be based on current rather than historical emissions—contrasting with many governments’ stated positions.
- Implication: Securing cooperation among countries could induce greater domestic political support for climate action.

### Conclusions and policy implications
- Public buy-in matters: Garnering public acceptance is important to achieve climate goals; perception and information influence policy support.
- Communication priorities:
  - Provide clear information about climate change impacts, how carbon pricing works, options for revenue recycling, and policy co-benefits.
  - Communicate policy efficacy and trade-offs transparently; explain how carbon pricing can be made progressive.
- Policy design priorities:
  - Emphasize co-benefits in public messaging to sustain support when costs are salient.
  - Use revenue recycling and social protection to address distributional concerns.
  - Ensure transparent and efficient public spending to reduce opposition driven by corruption concerns.
  - Employ integrated measures (labor market policies, supply-side support, transparent regulation) to enhance acceptability and effectiveness.
- International cooperation:
  - Broader-than-expected public support for collective action suggests opportunities to build common ground for international agreements and burden-sharing approaches based on current emissions.

*Source: IMF staff executive summary (sdnea2023002 - Executive Summary).*

### 1. Regression Coefficients & 95% Confidence Intervals

### 1. Regression Coefficients & 95% Confidence Intervals

### Regression results and statistical significance
- Ordinary least squares regressions on z-scores of the dependent variable (seriousness of climate change) are estimated with country fixed effects; the 95 percent confidence intervals are computed using standard errors clustered by country.
- Panel 1 reports these regressions; Panel 2 reports the range of coefficient estimates by country.
- Key graphical axis range shown: -0.4, -0.2, 0, 0.2, 0.4, 0.6, 0.8 (variables displayed alongside the axis include Age (35-54), Age (55+), Female, Children in household, Education (vocational or high-school), Education (college), Employed, Income (medium), Income (high), Car(s) in household, Use public transport, News from traditional sources, News from modern sources, Trust people, Supports govt. regulating economy, Risk Perception).
- The statistically significant gender gap in climate risk perceptions is reported and noted as consistent with existing research (for example, Xiao and McCright 2014).

### Awareness of government commitments and policy knowledge
- Awareness of government’s commitments to tackle climate change is, on average, higher in advanced economies, with important cross-country variation.
- Fewer respondents express prior knowledge of a carbon tax or emissions trading (cap-and-trade) systems compared with other policies such as laws and regulations to drive down energy use and subsidies for low-carbon technology or renewable energy sources.
- The note reiterates that data come from IMF staff calculations based on IMF-YouGov survey.

### Attributes of a good climate policy — text analysis findings
- Most common words in open-ended responses: “reduce” and “emissions”.
- Sankey analysis of verb-noun pairs shows frequent combinations centered on reducing emissions, pollution, and the use of cars.
- Other frequent concerns include reducing plastic and waste and stopping deforestation.
- Responses are classified into four topics: environmental protection, reducing emissions, energy generation, and increasing awareness.
- Distribution by country group:
  - Respondents from emerging market economies more frequently mention environmental protection.
  - Respondents from advanced economies focus more on emissions and the energy matrix.
- Nearly 15 percent of respondents in advanced economies say that they have no opinion or do not know what a good climate policy should aim to achieve.

### Support for climate action — baseline patterns
- Baseline support across countries is highest for subsidizing low-carbon technologies and renewable energy.
- Across regions, support for the three policies (carbon pricing, subsidies to low-carbon technologies/renewables, and regulations limiting emissions) is highest in Asia.
- Regional and country-level variation is documented in the survey results (percent favorable responses shown in country figures).

### Zooming in on carbon pricing — perceptions of benefits, costs, and distributional effects
- Perceived co-benefits:
  - Improved air quality is widely acknowledged; Asia has the highest share highlighting this benefit.
  - Perceived health benefits are higher in emerging markets and particularly striking in India, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Vietnam.
- Perceived costs:
  - Concerns about higher prices and more expensive energy are common in most countries; perceived costs are high in Europe, Canada, Malaysia, and Singapore.
  - Across countries, 10 to 35 percent of respondents think that carbon pricing will result in widespread job losses.
- Perceived equity effects:
  - A higher share of respondents in Europe (except Türkiye), Canada, and Japan consider carbon pricing to be regressive.
  - In The Netherlands and the United Kingdom, about 70 percent of respondents believe that low-income earners, the middle class, and small businesses would lose from carbon pricing.
  - In emerging market countries such as Brazil, India, the Philippines, and Thailand, respondents are less likely to consider distributional impacts as regressive.

### Empirical drivers of support for carbon pricing
- Support for carbon pricing is regressed on a rich set of individual-level characteristics, beliefs, and country fixed effects (Ordinary least squares on z-scores of the dependent variable; 95 percent confidence intervals from country-clustered standard errors).
- Strong climate change concern and the perception that carbon pricing is effective at reducing emissions are important determinants of policy support.
- Distributional concerns weaken support, particularly if the policy is believed to impose higher burdens on low- and middle-income households.
- Views on costs and benefits correlate with overall support; fears of job loss, increased energy and fuel prices, and higher cost of living are associated with lower support.
- Improved air quality, investment in renewable energy, and improved health outcomes are associated with higher support; country examples:
  - Improved air quality is a significant driver of support in Brazil, Mexico, and Spain.
  - Incentives for investment in renewable energy drive support in Australia, Japan, and Norway.

### What perceptions and beliefs matter most
- The most important factors explaining support for carbon pricing are:
  - Perceptions of policy efficacy and concerns about climate change.
  - Policy benefits and equity/fairness considerations are also important.
- Quantified contributions to explained variation:
  - Beliefs in the effectiveness of carbon pricing in reducing emissions and perceptions of policy benefits together account for 45 percent of the variation in support.
  - Equity and distributional concerns account for another 20 percent of the variation.
  - Socioeconomic and demographic characteristics explain less than 5 percent of the overall variation in policy views.
- Overall, cost, affordability, distributional concerns, and beliefs about lack of policy effectiveness are the most frequently cited reasons for opposing carbon pricing.

*Source: IMF staff calculations based on IMF-YouGov survey (figures and notes as presented in the document).*

### 2. Reasons for Not Supporting Carbon Pricing

### 2. Reasons for Not Supporting Carbon Pricing

### Revenue recycling to build support
- Design features, such as the way revenues from carbon pricing are recycled, can help address regressive effects and cost-of-living concerns and obtain broad support.
- A majority of respondents think that revenues should be used to help harder-hit low-income households, to increase social spending on health care and education, or be earmarked for low-carbon technologies and renewables.
- People value revenue recycling efforts that impose a lighter burden on low-income households, but there is significant cross-country variation in support for different recycling efforts.
- In Canada, Japan, South Korea, and Singapore, a large share of respondents also supports offsetting cuts to other taxes.
- About a third of respondents in Australia, China, the United States, and Vietnam support assisting workers in affected industries.
- Group differences within countries (for example, by wealth and education) shape preferences for revenue recycling; wealthier and more educated individuals tend to favor using revenues to fund renewable energy and low-carbon technologies compared with lower-income and less-educated individuals.
- Literature context (as cited): three broad revenue recycling strategies are earmarking for emission reduction projects, redistribution to reduce fiscal regressivity, and reduction of other taxes to achieve revenue-neutral outcomes. Implementation details, including transparent earmarking, can affect public acceptance.

### Support for other policies
- Subsidies for low-carbon technologies and renewables are universally the most favored climate policy; in Europe and the United States, it is the only policy supported by over half the respondents.
- Possible reasons for subsidy popularity:
  - Carbon pricing policies are more frequently associated with higher personal costs than other policy instruments.
  - Regulations are often viewed as coercive, reducing support.
  - Technological advances are seen as important tools for solving the climate crisis.
  - Costs of subsidies (higher taxes or lower spending elsewhere) tend to be less salient to respondents.
- Empirical reference from cited literature: subsidies for low-carbon technologies receive support from more than 55 percent of the sample in high-income countries and over 65 percent of the sample in middle-income countries.

### Spending efficiency and trust
- Among respondents who do not support subsidies for low-carbon technologies and renewables, the most frequently cited reason for opposition is costs to taxpayers, followed by concerns about corruption and policy effectiveness.
- These results support findings that higher perceived corruption is associated with weaker climate policies and higher greenhouse gas emissions after accounting for political and economic factors.
- Trust in public institutions and perceived government spending efficiency can drive support for greening the economy.

### Role of information
- Large information gaps exist: fewer than 20 percent of respondents in Indonesia say that they know what a carbon tax is.
- Many respondents do not believe carbon pricing can reduce emissions through behavioral change or that such a policy can be progressive; many respondents have no clear opinion about mitigation policies (about half of respondents in Egypt, Indonesia, and Japan neither supported nor opposed a carbon pricing policy).
- Information interventions:
  - Randomized provision of information about the effectiveness of carbon pricing and the benefits of revenue recycling increases public support for carbon pricing; the effect of the information treatment is statistically significant.
  - The people who change their minds after information provision are likely to have held neutral or negative views in the absence of information.
  - The impact of the information intervention is higher in countries where there is little preexisting knowledge of carbon taxes as a carbon policy instrument (country-level heterogeneity in treatment effects).
- Cost salience effects:
  - When respondents are made aware of potential personal financial trade-offs (increased prices or taxes), support for carbon pricing and subsidies typically falls.
  - For subsidies, informing respondents that subsidies must be paid for with an increase in taxes (or decrease in other government spending) shifts responses from “strongly support” toward “oppose.”

### Fragility of support and observed shifts
- Support for policies can be fragile when respondents are made aware of overall costs and benefits.
- Examples:
  - In Brazil initial support for carbon pricing was 62 percent, falling to 51 percent once respondents were made aware of the policy impacts.
  - In Türkiye initial support was 56 percent, falling to 48 percent once respondents were made aware of the policy impacts.
  - Support can also increase with information in some countries (for example, Indonesia and Poland).

### International political economy: multilateralism and burden sharing
- A vast majority of respondents think climate policy will be effective only if most countries adopt measures to reduce carbon emissions; this ranges from close to 60 percent in Japan to 80 percent in the United Kingdom.
- Perceptions of who should pay:
  - Most respondents in both advanced and emerging market economies think that all countries, not only rich ones, should pay to address climate change.
  - A large share of respondents in most countries (except China and Saudi Arabia) think that burden sharing should be based on current rather than historical emissions; this difference is more pronounced in advanced economies.
- The results imply that common ground for crafting future international agreements is larger than expected, but there remains scope to increase policy support in emerging market economies by differentiating policies based on level of development and past emissions.

*Source: IMF staff calculations based on IMF-YouGov survey (as presented in the provided content).*

### Conclusions and Policy Implications

### Conclusions and Policy Implications

### Overview
- Achieving net zero emissions globally requires a variety of policy interventions, including policies that put a price on carbon, subsidies to support the breakthrough of low-carbon technologies and renewable energy, and regulatory standards to drive down the energy use of buildings, cars, and appliances.
- International surveys were conducted across 28 advanced and emerging market economies to assess public perceptions and preferences for climate mitigation policies.

### Key findings on public perceptions
- There is significant heterogeneity across individuals and countries in how climate change is perceived and in how preferences for public intervention are defined.
- From a public acceptability perspective, public perceptions can hinder the adoption of otherwise desirable climate mitigation policies.
- Many people still have no opinion when it comes to supporting or opposing climate policy actions in their country, indicating large information gaps.

### Policy design: carbon pricing and revenue recycling
- The devil is in the design: carbon pricing policies can be made more acceptable by designing them to respond to citizen concerns.
- In addition to policy costs, perceived effectiveness, fairness, and co-benefits influence public support for carbon pricing.
- How revenues from carbon pricing are spent critically shapes support; preferences for revenue recycling vary both across and within countries.
- Revenue-recycling options noted:
  - Transfers that benefit poor households and those made worse-off.
  - Making cleaner energy alternatives more widely available and affordable.
  - Investment in green infrastructure where there is a large gap in infrastructure financing.
  - Using tax revenues for additional emissions reduction to reassure citizens that environmental objectives will be met.
- Carbon taxation can receive higher support in many countries if revenues are recycled to lower-income households.
- Cash transfers can help protect the most vulnerable and ease shifts toward lower carbon consumption.
- Universal transfers or reductions in taxes, such as labor taxes, coupled with targeted cash transfers for low- and middle-income households, could alleviate inequality and garner broader short-term public support.
- Recycling part of tax receipts into subsidies for investment in low-carbon technologies (renewables, electric vehicles) receives broad-based support across the sample of countries.

### Addressing distributional concerns and labor transitions
- The perception that a climate policy is regressive or that it leads to potential job losses can undermine public support.
- Active labor market policies that promote greener jobs and ease the transition for workers can minimize potential job losses, boost skills and incomes for the lowest-paid workers, and reduce inequality.
- Bolstering social safety nets and active labor market policies help address distributional concerns and secure public support.

### Need for complementary policies and public financial management
- An integrated government strategy is needed to secure public support and combat climate change.
- Achieving net zero globally requires new technologies and large investments in carbon-smart infrastructure and clean energy.
- Public support for these policies tends to be high across countries, but concerns about corruption and policy ineffectiveness dominate, implying government spending efficiency matters.
- Recommendations to improve implementation:
  - Green public financial management systems.
  - Improvements in public investment institutions and processes to build low-carbon infrastructure.
  - Ensure budgets and public investment are managed efficiently and effectively.

### Communicating effectiveness and co-benefits
- Communicating information about how policies work and their effectiveness in reducing emissions is important, particularly for policies with low support or where many are unaware of policy impacts (such as carbon pricing).
- The public is sensitive to potential negative implications of climate policies.
- Communicating co-benefits can help build support, including how policies reduce air pollution and lead to improved health outcomes and create new low-carbon jobs.
- Increasing awareness about the effectiveness of mitigation policies and how revenues from carbon pricing are spent could produce win-win solutions.
- The IMF’s Climate Change Indicators Dashboard supports priorities of improving public awareness of climate change concerns and providing necessary information to policymakers.

### Raising climate change and policy awareness
- There is an urgent need to close large information gaps and raise awareness of:
  - The societal transformations and behavioral changes needed.
  - The cost of inaction.
  - The impact of climate policies.

### Securing multilateral support for climate action
- There is widespread support for international cooperation, with sizable shares of respondents even in emerging market countries favoring global climate actions with burden sharing based on current (rather than historic) emissions.
- The public is likely to be more supportive of adopting costly climate policies if other countries do so, due to higher odds of reaching global net zero emissions goals and alignment with fairness norms.
- Securing cooperation among a small number of the largest emitters could catalyze needed global action and pave the way for others.
- One option mentioned for multilateral action is an international carbon price floor that could jump-start emissions reductions through substantive policy action.

### Survey sample
- Surveys covered 28 countries.
- Total observations: 28,541.

*Public Perceptions of Climate Mitigation Policies: Evidence from Cross-Country Surveys — Staff Discussion Note No. SDN/2023/002*

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_Source: https://www.imf.org/-/media/files/publications/sdn/2023/english/sdnea2023002.pdf_