New Clipore funded study to be released at COP15
Recent news reports suggest that climate change policy is no longer a priority concern among ordinary citizens, particularly in light of current economic conditions. But a new multi-country survey discounts such attitudes, finding that citizens are in fact willing to pay to avoid the consequences of a rise in global temperatures.
The new study, entitled “Sharing the load: A multi-country survey of the willingness to pay for slowing climate change," is being released at the international climate negotiations meeting in Copenhagen. Two key questions were examined in the survey, which was conducted in early December among 4,000 respondents in the United States, Sweden, and China. They were:
* How strongly (in terms of their willingness to pay) do people in various countries feel about bearing the costs required to avoid climate change
* How should the economic burden of reducing greenhouse gases be divided among countries to avoid perceptions of unfairness.
The results showed that to avoid the consequences of climate change that would arise from a 4°F temperature increase, 91.5% of Swedish respondents and 71% of US respondents were willing to pay some amount of money — but Swedes were willing to pay more, averaging $306/year versus $204/year for the U.S. sample.
Respondents in both countries were willing to pay even more if temperature increases could be held to 3°F ($330/year in the U.S.; $552/year in Sweden) and more still to hold the increase at 2°F ($430/year in the U.S.; $756/year in Sweden).
Please view a short summary of the report here (pdf, 430 kB).
