Educational policies can strengthen climate coalitions

What is it about?

Education is often used as a tool to build public awareness about climate change, but its effect on support for climate policies is not well understood. We evaluate the effects of a climate education policy through the study of a real-world large-scale educational intervention: a 3-h interactive workshop which has so far been implemented in over 500 French universities. We employed a randomized control trial reaching 1,845 students across 167 workshops. Students who took the workshop expressed 7 percentage points higher support for costly climate policies, including a beef tax, short-haul flight ban, and meat-free university canteen, compared with the control group. The workshop increased beliefs in the effectiveness of these policies and elicited more positive emotions about climate action. Evidence from a subsample of follow-up survey respondents suggests these effects may persist for at least 6 weeks.

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Photo by Quilia on Unsplash

Photo by Quilia on Unsplash

Why is it important?

Education is widely used as a tool to build public support for climate action, yet little evidence exists about its effectiveness. We show in a large-scale field experiment that a brief, interactive climate workshop increases support for costly climate policies, such as meat taxes and flight restrictions. The effects are driven by stronger beliefs in policy effectiveness and more positive emotions toward climate action. Our findings suggest that well-designed educational programs can have a role to play in broadening coalitions for climate policies.