Public support for carbon taxation in Turkey: drivers and barriers

ABSTRACT

The Paris Agreement aims to limit the increase in the global mean temperature to well below 2°C to avoid the severe impacts of climate change. To achieve this target, mitigation efforts in emerging economies through carbon pricing are critical, as they are cost effective and generate revenue. However, carbon pricing policies may not be politically feasible owing to low levels of public support. Therefore, investigation of the factors that affect public support for carbon pricing is crucial. Through a face-to-face survey of a representative sample of the Turkish population, we provide evidence for the drivers of, and barriers to, public support for one form of carbon pricing, that is, a potential carbon taxation. Our results suggest that there are numerous factors influencing support for carbon taxation. Among these, awareness of global warming, the perception of the effectiveness of carbon taxation, and carbon taxation adopted by other countries are the most important factors in terms of their marginal effect on support for the policy. If people have heard about global warming, they are more likely to support carbon taxation. The perception that carbon taxation is an effective policy to address climate change leads to increased public support. Moreover, the presence of carbon taxation in other countries positively influences support. However, an unanticipated result is that the use of carbon taxation revenues for mitigation and adaptation projects is not a statistically significant factor influencing public support. The reason for this may be the perception of the effectiveness of carbon taxation.

Key policy insights

• The perception that carbon taxation is an effective policy for decreasing the use of energy and addressing climate change increases public support for the policy.

• Concerns about global air pollution and climate change make the public more supportive of carbon taxation.

• The implementation of carbon taxation by other countries leads to greater public support for such a policy.

• However, concerns related to competitiveness and the regressive nature of carbon taxation negatively affect support.

• In contrast with the literature, an interesting finding is that the use of taxation revenues for mitigation and adaptation projects has no statistically significant impact on support.

KEYWORDS:

• Climate change
• Turkey
• carbon taxation
• public support
• mitigation

Acknowledgments

This study was supported by Istanbul Bilgi University: [Grant number 2018.02.009]. We are grateful to the Fraktol RW Company for their assistance with data collection. We also would like to thank Prof. Sevil Acar, anonymous referees and editor for their constructive comments. Any errors are our own.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Public opposition is not only an impediment to the introduction of carbon taxation, but also affects the level of current carbon pricing. Even if carbon taxes are implemented in practice in some countries, their current level, with almost half of the emissions priced at less than US$10/tCO₂e is far from the suggested levels, i.e. US$40-80/tCO₂ by 2020 and US$50-100/tCO₂, required to meet the target set by the Paris Agreement (World Bank & Ecofys, 2018; High-level Commission on Carbon Prices, 2017).

2 Using a choice experiment, they mainly focus on public preferences for the attributes of carbon taxes rather than the factors that influence support level.

3 The other policy options are as follows: (i) organising public campains to promote environmental awareness; (ii) enacting regulations that aim at protecting the environment; (iii) providing individuals and firms with subsidies for environmentally friendly activities; (iv) integrating climate change education into curriculum.

4 We also checked Variance Inflation Factors (VIFs) and observed that there was no significant variance increase in coefficent standard errors due to multicollinearity.

Additional information

Funding

This study was supported by Istanbul Bilgi University: [grant number 2018.02.009].