Climate Action from Abroad: Assessing Mass Support for Cross-Border Climate Compensation
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Resource transfers from developed to developing countries to help prevent and adapt to climate change play a central role in international climate policy efforts. At the same time, countries are domestically grappling with how to provide these transfers, if at all. A growing literature explores the economic logics and efficiency of international climate finance, yet the politics are particularly difficult, partly because publics are often biased towards policy at home rather than abroad. This paper examines how the design of climate support packages influences public support for them using original survey evidence from the United States and India. We find compelling evidence that efficiency considerations do not drive preferences toward climate transfers. Economic costs, while certainly salient, only explain part of the public attitudes towards climate investments. Instead, salient in voters’ minds are climate justice considerations that take into account vulnerability and compensation, along with with other normative factors such as reciprocity by other developed countries and domestic agency in structuring the design of transfers. Taken together, the evidence indicates that political attributes are key determinants that can unlock public support for cross-border climate cooperation. We shed theoretical and empirical light on these political dimensions of climate finance that could ignite more interest in supporting climate action abroad.
Date: 21 February 2023, 12:30 (Tuesday, 6th week, Hilary 2023)
Venue: Nuffield College, New Road OX1 1NF
Venue Details: Clay Room
Speaker: Federica Genovese (University of Essex)
Organising department: Nuffield College
Organisers: Tarik Abou-Chadi (Nuffield College), Ezequiel Gonzalez Ocantos (Nuffield College)
Organiser contact email address: maxine.collett@nuffield.ox.ac.uk
Part of: Nuffield College Political Science Seminars
Booking required?: Not required
Audience: Members of the University only
Editor: Maxine Collett