The limits of alarm: how climate scenarios fail to increase willingness to act and pay for climate change policies

Does exposure to information on future climate scenarios shape public acceptance and willingness to pay for climate mitigation? This article addresses this question using two vignette experiments embedded in two different surveys in Spain to causally examine how exposure to information about future alternative climate scenarios affects an individual’s commitment to climate efforts. The findings show that such exposure has no significant effect on individuals’ support for publicly funded climate initiatives or on their willingness to contribute financially. These results suggest that priming the public with varying projections of climate change impacts is unlikely to enhance support for climate change policies, underscoring the need for alternative strategies to foster public support.