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Public Support for Environmental Regulation: When Ideology Trumps Knowledge by Dertwinkel-Kalt, Markus; Grossmann, Max R. P. is a scholarly article available to read on EtoBox.

What is Public Support for Environmental Regulation: When Ideology Trumps Knowledge about?

When environmental regulations are unpopular, policymakers often attribute resistance to information frictions and poor communication. We test this idea in the context of a major climate policy: Germany's Heating Law of 2023, which mandates the phase-out of fossil fuel heating. Through a survey experiment with property owners, we examine whether providing comprehensive information about the regulation's costs, requirements, and timeline affects adoption decisions and policy support. Despite successfully increasing factual knowledge, information provision has no significant effect on intended technology adoption, policy support, or incentivized measures of climate preferences. Instead, pre-existing environmental preferences and demographic characteristics emerge as the key predictors of responses to the regulation. A feeling that existing systems still work well and cost considerations dominate fossil fuel users' stated reasons for non-adoption, while independence from fossil fuels and perceived contributions to the common good drive adoption among switchers. Our findings suggest that opposition to climate policy stems from fundamental preference heterogeneity rather than informatio

Author

Dertwinkel-Kalt, Markus; Grossmann, Max R. P.

Published

2025

Language

EN