The impact of compensatory measures on public support for carbon taxation: an experimental study in Sweden

This study aims at better understanding how, and to what extent, perceptions of a policy instrument’s distributional effects impact on policy support, focusing on the case of CO₂ taxes on petrol in Sweden. Through a large-scale (N?=?5000) randomized survey experiment with a 2?×?3 factorial design, the extent to which perceptions of fairness determine attitudes to a suggested increase of the Swedish CO₂ tax is explored. Furthermore, the study considers whether these effects change with the level of the suggested tax increase, as well as whether negative sentiments can be alleviated by combining it with a compensatory measure in the shape of a simultaneous income tax cut financed by the revenues from the tax increase. The results show that a higher tax increase is both viewed as more unfair and enjoys weaker support. Furthermore, compensatory measures can be a powerful policy design tool to increase perceptions of the policy as fair, but the effect of compensation on policy support is conditioned by the individual’s left–right ideological position. Whereas people self-identifying to the right react favourably to compensatory measures, people self-identifying to the left become less supportive of a tax increase when combined with a simultaneous cut in income taxes.

Key policy insights

• Perceptions of fairness are highly important for explaining public support for climate policy tools, specifically CO₂ taxes.

• Compensatory measures can be a powerful policy design tool to increase perceptions of the policy as less unfair.

• However, the effect of compensatory measures on policy support is conditioned by ideological position, and only successful among people to the ideological right.

• In contexts dominated by right-wing ideals, a combination of a tax and a compensatory scheme may be a successful route forward towards increased climate policy support.

• In left-oriented contexts the results imply that a CO₂ tax without compensation seems more likely to increase support.

     

Effect of reciprocity on public opinion of international climate treaties: experimental evidence from the US and China

This study reports survey results of American and Chinese citizens administered to determine the effect of reciprocity and the absence of reciprocity on public support of international climate treaties. American and Chinese college students and adults were surveyed about their support for signing an international climate treaty including commitments to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, conditional on the other country signing the same treaty or not. This study finds knowledge of other-country non-support on average decreases cooperative behaviour among all age groups in both the US and China. Knowledge of China’s support for the treaty is found on average to increase support among American adults, while having no noticeable effect on average support among American college students. Chinese citizens are found to not respond positively to reciprocity. Although not statistically significant at conventional significance levels, knowledge of the US’s support is found on average to decrease support among Chinese college students and adults.

Key policy insights

• To increase support for international climate treaties, knowledge that another major emitter will sign the treaty does not unanimously increase domestic support.

• Knowing the other country will not sign the treaty decreases domestic support for signing an international climate treaty for both Americans and Chinese, relative to not being told about the other country’s decision to sign the treaty.

• Knowing China will sign an international climate treaty on average increases American adult support for signing the same treaty, while American college student support is unaffected.

• Although not statistically significant at conventional significance levels, knowing the US will sign an international climate treaty on average decreases Chinese support for signing the same treaty.

• Policy-makers pursuing increased international support of climate treaties by first getting support from countries with substantial historical emissions might deter international support if little attention to fairness concerns is given.

     

Attitudes toward climate change mitigation policies: a review of measures and a construct of policy attitudes

Research on policy support or public acceptability of climate change policies is proliferating. There is, however, a great diversity in how these evaluative responses have been defined, operationalized, and measured across studies. In order to shed some light on this subject, we reviewed 118 studies published over the last 15 years aiming at measurement of policy acceptability, acceptance, support, and other responses to climate change mitigation policies. We found that conceptual vagueness and weak theoretical embedding are pervasive in the field, which leads to uncertainty over what is being measured, ambiguity of policy recommendations, and difficulties in comparing empirical results. In response, we propose a construct of policy attitudes as an overarching concept comprising the diversity of measures and constructs already in use. The purpose of the construct is to serve as a common basis for operationalization and survey design. In order to inform policy makers, researchers should be clear in how they formulate surveys with a focus on questions of importance to research and policy-making.

Key policy insights

• Acceptability, acceptance, and support are defined as distinct and possibly empirically distinguishable classes of responses evaluating a policy proposal. These responses are expressions of underlying policy attitudes.

• People may respond to policies in other ways as well, including lack of interest.

• There is no popularity threshold for a policy to be safe to implement, but instead it is a matter of identifying the conditions of policy support or other responses.

• Results obtained using different measures of mitigation policy attitudes vary widely with respect to the characteristics of the policy in question and the measured response. Thus, great care must be taken when designing surveys and interpreting their results.

     

The political roots of divergence in carbon market design: implications for linking

There is a substantial literature on optimal emissions trading system (ETS) designs, but relatively little on how organized political interests affect the design and operation of these economic instruments. This article looks systematically at the political economy of the diffusion of ETS designs and explores the implications for carbon-market linking. Contrary to expectations of convergence – as has been observed in many areas where economic policy diffuses across markets – we found substantial divergence in the design and implementation of ETS across the nine systems examined. The architects of these different systems are aware of other designs, but they have purposely adjusted designs to reflect local political and administrative goals. Divergence has sobering implications for visions of ubiquitous linkages and the emergence of a global carbon market that, to date, have been predicated on the assumption that designs would converge. More such ‘real world’ political economy analysis is needed to understand how political forces, mainly within countries, act as strong intervening variables that affect instrument design, implementation and effectiveness.

Key policy insights

• Our finding of design divergence indicates that policy efforts aimed at achieving integrated international markets are unlikely to be successful.

• Visions of carbon market linkage will need to confront the reality that there are well-organized political coalitions, anchored in the status quo, that prefer divergence.

• In linking ETS, policy-makers should devote more attention to preventing excessive capital flows that can undermine political support for linkage, while also creating incentives for convergence in trading rules over time.

     

基于GIS的立体化三维地楼房技术的研究与应用

土地和海洋是国家的疆域,而土地作为人类生存、居住和从事社会活动的主要场所地位显得尤为重要.土地管理是涉及发展改革、农业、国土、房管、住房城乡建设等多部门的综合业务管理.因土地管理涉及部门较多,土地的使用和流转复杂、管理困难,给我国行政管理部门的工作带来了一定的困难,本文旨在介绍以宗地为基础单元的土地及土地商品属性的全流程业务成果管理的技术研究及应用情况,并将三维技术应用了地楼房管理中,达到了三维地楼房的直观立体化展示效果.     

Resource Peripheries and Neoliberalism: the Pilbara and the remaking of industrial relations in Australia

How mining companies overcome the problems faced by the fixity of resources and how they might come to exercise influence in societies which appear to be mostly post-industrial are complex questions of political geography. This is not least the case for a region such as the Pilbara—an iron ore site isolated from metropolitan centres—in Australia—a country isolated from many global centres and markets. At the same time, local struggles in this resources site have been profoundly influential in the making of a national neoliberal industrial relations agenda. Building on other scholarship on the Pilbara, but here re-emphasising the local scale and the details of work and regulation, provides a way to assess the place's wider importance. The Pilbara is a site of thoroughly transformed industrial relations, from a union space when export mining began in the 1960s to an employer stronghold today. Policy makers delivered changes to facilitate the remaking of employer power in workplaces in and beyond mining. This resource periphery has therefore been central to the remaking of national policy regimes.     

The Demographic Constraints on Future Population Growth in Regional Australia

Concern about rapid population growth in Australia's large cities and slower growth in many non-metropolitan areas has stimulated a range of government policies attempting to lift non-metropolitan growth rates. However, there is relatively little research on which to base these policies. It would be helpful to understand more about the consequences of current demographic trends continuing and the effects of alternative migration patterns. This paper presents sub-national population projections for Australia over the horizon 2011–2041, basing the projections on more socially meaningful Remoteness Areas instead of common statistical geographies. Three sets of projections were generated: a Current Direction scenario in which recent demographic trends are maintained, a Regional Immigration scenario in which more immigrants settle in regional and remote areas, and a Metro Exodus scenario in which there is increased internal migration from metropolitan to non-metropolitan areas. The future of Australia's population geography is shown to be one of spatially varying growth and population ageing, and continued metropolitanisation. In regional areas rapid population ageing will lower natural increase rates and thus reduce overall growth, resulting in a falling share of the national population. Policy measures attempting to increase the share of growth in regional areas will struggle against natural demographic forces operating in the opposite direction.     

Approaches to evaluating model quality across different regime types in environmental and public health governance

A reliance on mathematical modelling is a defining feature of modern global environmental and public health governance. Initially hailed as the vanguard of a new era of rational policy-making, models are now habitually subject to critical analyses. Their quality, in other words, is routinely queried, yet what exactly is quality in this context? The prevailing paradigm views model quality as a multi-dimensional concept, encompassing technical dimensions (e.g. precision and bias), value judgments, problem-framing, treatment of “deep” uncertainties, and pragmatic features of particular decision contexts. Whilst those technical dimensions are relatively simple to characterise, the broader dimensions of quality are less easily formalised and as a result are difficult to take account of during model construction and evaluation. Here, we present a typology of governance regimes (risk-based, precautionary, adaptive and participatory) that helps make explicit what these broader dimensions of model quality are, and sketches out how the emphasis placed on them differs by regime type. We show that these regime types hold distinct positions on what constitutes sound evidence, on how that evidence should be used in policy-making, and to what social ends. As such, a model may be viewed within one regime as providing legitimate evidence for action, be down-weighted elsewhere for reflecting a flawed problem-framing, and outright rejected in another jurisdiction on the grounds that it does not cohere with the preferred ethical framework for decision-making. We illustrate these dynamics by applying our typology to a range of policy domains, emphasising both the disconnects that can occur, as well as the ways that modellers have adapted their practices to ensure that their evidence is brought to bear on policy problems across diverse regime types.     

Technological capability and transfer for achieving South Africa's development goals

Technological capability and technology transfer both play important roles in achieving low-carbon development targets and the concepts of both have appeared in national development and climate policy debates. Yet, they differ. Improving capabilities and transfer mechanisms are two differing approaches to technological development. Technology transfer is associated with a key political dynamic within international climate policy, in that developing countries request support from industrialised countries. Whereas technological capability focuses on building internal capabilities and is often framed in the context of national industrial policy plans rather than relying on external support. We argue that technology development, a combination of these approaches, can contribute to South Africa's low-carbon development through innovation and technology-based mitigation actions that increase domestic technological capabilities. Technological capability needs to become a determinant of mitigation action to effectively contribute to achieving South Africa's low-carbon development goals. International technology transfer and cooperation should contribute to boosting domestic capabilities to advance technological development. Technology transfer based on pure sales will not contribute to achieving long-term low-carbon development goals.