Skip to main content

By Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK)

The political success of climate change mitigation in Europe will depend on how well policy design enables consumers to switch from fossil fuels to clean green energy sources, researchers from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research PIK and Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz argue.

To accept carbon pricing, citizens desire viable alternatives to fossil-fuel based options, the authors of a new Comment published in Nature Climate Change write. They suggest a new argument for how to understand the public’s response to carbon pricing and how to ensure successful climate policy.

Support for carbon pricing in the European transport and building sector is highest when the revenues are re-invested in green measures such as climate-friendly building renovations, write Franziska Funke and Linus Mattauch from PIK, together with Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz and colleagues from the University of Amsterdam and the French Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique.

Combining green investments with targeted transfers to the most vulnerable is also supported by a majority.

The team of researchers asked 2,251 citizens from France, Spain and Germany about their views on the forthcoming second emissions trading system for road transport and heating and the newly planned Social Climate Fund, a measure to redistribute carbon pricing revenues within the EU. Both measures will become effective from 2027 on.

The researchers situate these findings in the context of the access barriers that consumers often face for switching towards green alternatives. As living costs and the costs for financing new climate-friendly appliances have risen, people are primarily interested in the range of options available when facing a carbon price.

Rather than simply having to pay up and limit their driving and heating, citizens desire policies that enable them to switch, for example from a car with a combustion engine to an electric vehicle or public transport, the researchers say.

Additionally, policy-makers should take even more care to target subsidies for clean energy consumer devices and loans for housing renovations to low-income households, the scientists conclude. This should help to reach people who could else face a price hike with no viable option to change their energy use.

More information: Funke, F., Mattauch, L., Douenne, T., Fabre, A., Stiglitz, J. E., ‘Supporting carbon pricing when interest rates are higher‘, Nature Climate Change (2024); DOI: 10.1038/s41558-024-02040-z. PIK – Press Release. Featured image credit: CHUTTERSNAP | Unsplash

Healthy diets, key to sustainable food system in China
Image of a supermarket (v. food system)
Healthy diets, key to sustainable food system in ChinaClimate

Healthy diets, key to sustainable food system in China

A study published in Nature Food reveals that China's current food system trajectory does not align with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Using…
Muser NewsDeskMuser NewsDeskJanuary 22, 2025 Full article
Award goes to Camille Parmesan for uncovering global species shifts due to climate change
Image: Camille Parmesan
Award goes to Camille Parmesan for uncovering global species shifts due to climate changeNews

Award goes to Camille Parmesan for uncovering global species shifts due to climate change

The BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in Climate Change and Environmental Sciences goes in this seventeenth edition to Camille Parmesan (Centre National de la…
SourceSourceApril 24, 2025 Full article
Scientists unite to save the Earth’s glaciers
Image: Boat Near Hubbard Glacier in Alaska, USA
Scientists unite to save the Earth’s glaciersNews

Scientists unite to save the Earth’s glaciers

Glacial ice stores 70% of Earth’s freshwater, underpinning the food and water security of billions of people. But ice is at the frontline of the…
SourceSourceMarch 19, 2025 Full article