Climate Change Preferences and Values

Abstract

This research examines the role of fundamental beliefs in the environment, anthropocentrism, and the economy in public preferences toward policies aimed at mitigating the risks of climate change as well as the heterogeneity in those beliefs. We argue that citizens hold multiple considerations toward policies related to global warming and that rather than making policy choices more difficult leading to attitudinal ambivalence, these various beliefs reduce the response variability around individual preferences. Further, we argue that individuals with more knowledge about the causes and consequences of global warming should have more variance around their policy preferences. The analysis of a national telephone survey related to climate change reveals that 1) many people are generally supportive of policies to reduce the risks of global warming 2) the amount of support varies according to specific policy proposals 3) policy preferences are mostly of function of beliefs toward the environment and the economy and subjective risk perceptions and 4) the variation around individual policy preferences decreases among individuals that simultaneously hold competing values and expectations toward the environment, the economy, and human dominance over nature. These results indicate that multiple considerations do not necessarily lead to ambivalence among public preferences for policies to reduce the risks of climate change. In addition, the results show that individuals with more knowledge about the causes and consequences of climate change are generally more supportive of policies to limit the risks of global warming, but also have more variation around those preferences.