Telling voters how much billionaires pollute actually makes them *less* likely to want to fix the climate.
While it seems intuitive that 'blaming the rich' would rally populist support for climate action, this experiment found it backfires with anti-elite voters, making them more skeptical of the policies. This suggests that linking climate change to class inequality might be a losing strategy for the very people most angry at the establishment.
Blame the Billionaires? Media exposure to carbon inequality polarises climate policy support
SocArXiv · e5j2h_v1
Does carbon inequality affect support for climate policies? Previous research suggests that awareness of inequality increases policy support, but relies on stylised treatments far from real-world conditions. We present a pre-registered experiment in France in which respondents were shown real newspaper headlines, and measure effects on policy support and willingness to donate to a climate organisation. In contrast with previous work, we find no average effect of carbon inequality information. Ho