Exploring consumer preferences for Net-Zero policies: Willingness to Pay of UK citizens for national greenhouse gas reduction targets under different future discounting assumptions

Abstract

Following the UK's hosting of the United Nations Convention of the Parties Climate Summit in 2021, political targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions - "Net-Zero" - have gained momentum. We address the gap in how public preferences are accounted for in climate decision-making by applying Contingent-Valuation techniques which ask people to state their Willingness-to-Pay (WTP) for the UK's 2050 Net-Zero target. Mean WTP is 37.57 pound/household to support Net-Zero (median 11.25) pound, with a present-value of 2.3 pound billion across UK households. While younger people are more likely to experience the long-term impacts of climate change, older generations are willing to pay more to support it, suggesting that public support for Net-Zero is largely based on "nonuse" benefits, rather than direct "use" benefits to oneself. The COVID-19 epidemic affected WTP bids in a quarter of respondents. Finally, we explore how choice of positive or normative discount rate affects policy conclusions when monetizing consumer preferences.