As Europe grappled with last summer’s heat waves, a continent-wide poll tested citizens’ willingness to support various policies against the climate crisis. The result is not surprising: consensus is high when it comes to incentives and subsidies, much lower when it comes to taxes and bans. The study, conducted as part of the European CAPABLE project, collected the opinions of more than 19,000 people in 13 countries between June and August 2024. The data feed into an interactive platform that allows for comparison of positions across states and social groups.
The allure of subsidies
The message from respondents is clear: if governments want to push citizens towards more sustainable behaviour, it is better to reward than punish. Seventy per cent of Europeans support a European Rail Fund to make trains more affordable and efficient. More than half support mandatory home insulation and a ban on private jets. “These are policies with a high degree of acceptability that can represent easily achievable opportunities for policymakers,” points out Keith Smith, a researcher at ETH Zurich who led the study.
At the other extreme, tax measures remain indigestible: levies on meat and flights, as well as bans on combustion cars, get the lowest scores. It’s confirmation of a bias that has already emerged in other surveys: Europeans welcome public investment in the transition, but struggle to accept taxes that directly affect everyday habits.
North, South, East: opinions compared
Support for climate policies is uneven. In the Mediterranean countries—Italy, Greece, France—at least five of the proposals gain wide support. More lukewarm, however, are Eastern European states such as Poland and the Czech Republic, where support is more limited. These differences reflect both economic conditions and the political priorities of different governments.
Another cross-sectional finding emerges from the socio-demographic analysis: women, young people and people with a higher level of education prove on average to be more open to all climate measures. In other words, the willingness to change lifestyles increases with the level of education and the sensitivity of the younger generation.
The implications for Brussels
For the researchers, the lesson is clear: there is no single recipe for consensus. “These preliminary results highlight an important heterogeneity in support for climate policies in Europe, but also a potential pathway to a broad consensus on effective actions,” explains Johannes Emmerling, coordinator of the CAPABLE project. In other words, to advance the Green Deal, it is not enough to focus on general rules: we need targeted measures, differentiated by country and social strata, capable of combining climate ambition and social justice.
