Most people support taxing carbon even if it costs them, global survey shows

This story was originally published by Grist and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

People in affluent countries around the world are willing to tax themselves to address climate change and ease poverty.

That idea defies conventional political wisdom, which typically holds that people hate taxes. It emerged in a survey of 40,680 people in 20 nations that found strong support for a carbon tax that would transfer wealth from the worst polluters to people in developing nations. Most of them support such policies even if it takes money out of their own pocket. 

Adrian Fabre, lead author of the study published in Nature, wasn’t surprised by the results. He studies public attitudes toward climate policy at the International Center for Research on Environment and Development in Paris, and said this is the latest in a long line of studies showing that climate-related economic policies enjoy greater support, on the whole, than people assume.

This study asked people how they’d feel about a global carbon tax: The larger an individual’s contribution to climate change, the more they’d pay. In exchange, everyone in the world would receive about $30 per month. “People with a carbon footprint larger than the world average would financially lose, and those with a carbon footprint lower than the world average would win,” Fabre said.

The survey included 12 high-income countries and eight “middle-income” countries like Mexico, India, and Ukraine. The researchers surveyed at least 1,465 people in each nation over several weeks in May 2024. Japan showed the highest support, with 94 percent of respondents backing the idea of linking policies that combat inequality and climate change. 

That said, the policy was least popular in the United States, where the average person is responsible for about 18 tons of CO2 a year. About half of Americans surveyed supported the tax. (Three in 4 Biden voters favored the idea. Among Trump voters, just 26 percent did. In contrast, support ran as high as 75 percent across the European Union, where per-capita emissions are 10 tons.

“We found that people in high-income countries are willing to let go of some purchasing power if they can be sure that it solves climate change and global poverty,” Fabre said. Americans would end up foregoing about $85 a month, according to the study. 

That’s not to say such policies would remain popular once enacted. Canada learned this lesson with its tax-and-dividend scheme, which levied a tax on fossil fuels and returned nearly all of that money to households—most of which ended up receiving more money in dividends than they lost to the tax. People supported the plan when the government adopted it in 2019. But support slid as fuel prices rose, and the government scrapped it earlier this year amid pressure from voters and the fossil fuel industry.

“What matters ultimately is not the actual objective benefits that people receive,” said Matto Mildenberger, “but the perceived benefits that they think they are receiving.” 

Mildenberger studies the political drivers of policy inaction at the University of California-Santa Barbara. In Canada’s case, the higher prices people paid at the gas pump weighed more heavily in their mind than the rebate they received later—especially when opponents of such a tax told them they were losing money. “One of the most critical factors in my mind that generates friction for these policies is interest group mobilization against them,” Mildenberger said.

Regardless of whether carbon pricing is the answer to the world’s climate woes, the fact that people are more supportive of climate policies that also fight poverty is telling, he said. 

“Inequality-reducing policies are a political winner, and integrating economic policy with climate policy will make climate policies more popular,” he said. “The public rewards policies that are like chewing gum and walking at the same time.” The question now is whether governments are listening.