Is it hot in here? An experiment on how climate change and carbon taxation information affect carbon tax acceptance

Abstract

Climate change is an increasing issue around the world. The emissions of greenhouse gases need to be reduced and one of the more effective ways is by using carbon taxation. This thesis aims to investigate how information provision about climate change and carbon taxation could influence people's acceptance of a carbon tax. To test this, we sent out a survey to Swedish universities. By conducting an experiment, with one treatment group receiving climate change information and one treatment group receiving carbon tax information, we can compare and see if the respondent's getting information increased their acceptance compared to a control group. Our main result is based on proportion tests and conditional average treatment effect (CATE) analysis. The results from these are that the information we provided did not increase acceptance of a carbon tax.