Public views on carbon taxation and its fairness : a computational-linguistics analysis
Savin, Ivan (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals)
Drews, Stefan (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals)
Maestre Andrés, Sara (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals)
van den Bergh, Jeroen C. J. M. (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals)

Data:	2020
Resum:	Carbon taxes evoke a variety of public responses, often with negative implications for policy support, implementation and stringency. Here we use topic modelling to analyze associations of Spanish citizens with a policy proposal to introduce a carbon tax. This involves asking two key questions, to elicit (1) citizens' associations with a carbon tax and (2) their judgment of the fairness of such a policy for distinct uses of tax revenues. We identify 11 topics for the first question and 18 topics for the second. We perform regression analysis to assess how respondents' associations relate to their carbon-tax acceptability, knowledge and socio-demographic characteristics. The results show that, compared to people accepting the carbon tax, those rejecting it show less trust in politicians, think that the rich should pay more than the poor, consider the tax to be less fair, and stress more a lack of renewable energy or low-carbon transport. Respondents accepting a carbon tax emphasize more the need to solve environmental problems and care about a just society. These insights can help policy makers to improve the design and communication of climate policy with the aim to increase its public acceptability.
Ajuts:	European Commission 741087
Nota:	Unidad de excelencia María de Maeztu CEX2019-000940-M
Drets:	Tots els drets reservats.
Llengua:	Anglès
Document:	Article ; recerca ; Versió acceptada per publicar
Matèria:	Carbon pricing ; Fairness perception ; Policy acceptability ; Public opinion ; Structural topic modelling
Publicat a:	Climatic Change, Vol. 162, issue 4 (Oct. 2020) , p. 2107-2138 (2020), ISSN 1573-1480

DOI: 10.1007/s10584-020-02842-y

Postprint 42 p, 2.4 MB

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Documents de recerca > Documents dels grups de recerca de la UAB > Centres i grups de recerca (producció científica) > Ciències > Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals (ICTA) > Environmental and Climate Economics (ECE)
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