Study finds strong support for international climate justice

Around eight in ten people in Sweden support the idea that wealthy countries should help poorer countries tackle climate change. Most also believe they have an individual responsibility to act. These are findings from a study of public attitudes towards different principles of climate justice.

The study is based on an online survey of 680 people in Sweden, conducted in November 2022. The researchers examined participants’ views on climate responsibilities between countries and individuals’ duties to act, and how these views were associated with factors including climate worry.

Alongside strong support for climate assistance to poorer countries, a majority—63 per cent—believed they had a personal moral responsibility to reduce emissions.

Only around 15 per cent considered economic development a valid reason for not having to reduce emissions. This applied to Sweden and other wealthy countries as well as to less developed countries.

While support for international climate justice was strong, considerably fewer respondents believed that Sweden should offer asylum to people forced to leave their homes because of climate change. Just under a third supported this proposal.

“Partly, I think this is about moving from a general idea that wealthy countries and major emitters should help poorer countries to something more specific about both who should help and how. Naturally, responses then become more varied. People simply have different views on how that assistance should be provided,” says Kirsti Jylhä, a researcher in climate psychology and the study’s lead author.

Climate worry was a factor associated with support for both international climate justice and individual responsibility—particularly worry about others. People who worried about people in other countries, animals and future generations also tended to express stronger support for the justice principles. Worry about oneself was not as strongly associated with greater support.

Support for international principles of justice also appeared to increase with age.

“It was somewhat surprising that age was associated with stronger support. That is interesting given the common perception that young people care more about climate change than older people do. But most people care about climate change, and the association with age may depend on which aspects of the issue we are looking at,” says Kirsti Jylhä.

Since climate change is largely a question of who should pay, for what and why, issues of justice are central. Proposals for carbon taxes, for example, are based on the “polluter pays principle”, which holds that those responsible for emissions should pay for the resulting costs and damage. The proposal that wealthy countries should provide climate assistance to poorer countries rests on the “ability to pay” principle: those who have the resources to pay should do so. It also rests on the “beneficiary principle”: wealthy countries, some of which may account for a relatively small share of emissions today, have nevertheless benefited and developed as a result of historically high emissions, and therefore have a responsibility to bear the costs of emissions reductions and climate adaptation.

Given the strong support for principles of justice, the researchers suggest that these could be an important tool for communicating about climate action.

“It may be helpful to discuss more explicitly which principles underpin different proposals. Bringing justice and principles of justice into the discussion is also about understanding those who oppose climate action, since opposition often stems from a perception that measures are unfair and place a greater burden on some people than on others,” says Kirsti Jylhä.

The study, “Perceptions and underpinnings of climate justice demands: investigating the public’s conception of international and individual-level duties”, is published in Frontiers in Psychology and was conducted by Kirsti M. Jylhä, Göran Duus-Otterström and Krister Bykvist.