Büchs, M. orcid.org/0000-0001-6304-3196, Bastianelli, E. orcid.org/0000-0002-4474-2968 and Schnepf, S.V. orcid.org/0000-0003-0768-5682 (2024) Public opposition to fuel taxes in Europe: how important is social disadvantage and how do welfare regimes compare? Journal of European Social Policy, 34 (5). pp. 495-510. ISSN 0958-9287
Abstract
Fuel taxes are seen as an important instrument in the fight against climate change, including in the European Green Deal. From a social-ecological policy perspective, it is important to understand current high levels of public opposition to fuel taxes. If social disadvantage is an important driver of opposition, this would strengthen arguments that fuel taxes need to be designed in a fairer way. However, it remains unclear how important social disadvantage – here defined as a combination of low income, fuel poverty risk, low education, low occupational status and job insecurity – is for explaining opposition compared to factors such as political trust and climate change attitudes, and how the role of social disadvantage varies with welfare regimes in Europe. In this article, we examine how strongly social disadvantage is associated with opposition to fuel taxes once political trust and climate change attitudes are controlled for, and we compare results across welfare regimes. The article uses data from the 2016 European Social Survey and employs logistic regression and decomposition analysis. We find that social disadvantage contributes nearly as much to fuel tax opposition as climate change attitudes and political trust together, with 10.9 and 16.6 percentage points respectively. However, the role of social disadvantage varies by welfare regime. It matters most in Southern and Eastern Europe, where opposition is particularly high, as are poverty and inequality. We discuss implications for social-ecological policy strategies that aim to increase public acceptability of fuel taxes in Europe.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © The Author(s) 2024. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC-BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
Keywords: | Carbon taxes; fuel taxes; low income; social disadvantage; Europe; Just transition; social-ecological policy; public acceptance |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Environment (Leeds) > School of Earth and Environment (Leeds) > Sustainability Research Institute (SRI) (Leeds) |
Funding Information: | Funder Grant number EPSRC (Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council) EP/R035288/1 |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 12 Nov 2024 11:56 |
Last Modified: | 12 Nov 2024 11:56 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | SAGE Publications |
Identification Number: | 10.1177/09589287241270942 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:219440 |