By Isla Binnie
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Help to buy solar panels and electric vehicles gets the thumbs up, but paying more to use fossil fuels is a far less popular route to reducing carbon emissions in the face of climate change, a poll from Ipsos shared with Reuters showed.
From Berlin to Beijing, governments are keen to encourage environmentally friendly life choices and world leaders meeting at the COP27 climate conference from Nov. 6 will be warned that more decisive action is urgently needed.
Ipsos asked 22,258 adults across 34 countries whether they would back nine different suggested policies aimed at limiting the environmental impact of everyday life.
Of those surveyed, 68% supported or strongly supported government spending on subsidies to reduce the retail price of solar panels and electric vehicles.
The survey found 59% of people supported changing product pricing to make environmentally damaging goods more expensive and environmentally friendly products cheaper – but when it came to travel, respondents were divided on whether to increase taxes on flights and diesel vehicles, with 39% in favour and 30% against.
The staunchest opposition was reserved for higher taxes on red meat and dairy products – with 40% of respondents disapproving – and higher taxes on non-renewable energy sources for heating and cooking, which met with 42% rejection.
Responses differed between different countries. For example, higher taxes on red meat and dairy drew 57% support from those surveyed in India, yet only 23% from those in France.
People generally prefer not to be told what to do, but that does not answer the question of whether incentives work best, said Janet Swim, professor of psychology at Pennsylvania State University.
“Incentives are helpful when you have people who want to do something and it increases their ability to do that something. But if they don’t want to do it the incentive isn’t necessarily going to make them want to do it,” Swim said.
(Reporting by Isla Binnie; editing by Simon Jessop and Bernadette Baum)
