“Ocean acidification is one of climate change’s silent killers,” says Rebecca Albright, PhD, Academy Curator of Invertebrate Zoology and founder of the Coral Regeneration Lab (CoRL). “While not as high-profile as threats like coral bleaching, ocean acidification will cause widespread destruction of marine environments by the end of this decade if we don’t take urgent action. To help policymakers identify what actions they should take, my collaborators and I asked ourselves, ‘What would a government have to do in order to have a comprehensive plan to safeguard both the environment and society from ocean acidification?'”

Ultimately, the researchers identified six aspects of effective ocean acidification policy, along with specific indicators for each, that policymaking bodies, from local governments to federal agencies, can use to evaluate and guide their own policies.

1. Climate protection measures: Are there adequate policies to reduce overall emissions of the greenhouse gases driving ocean acidification?
2. Ocean acidification literacy: Is there general public awareness and understanding of the threats posed by ocean acidification?
3. Area-based management: Do marine protected areas and management plans include explicit strategies to measure and increase resilience to ocean acidification?
4. Research and development: Are funds being explicitly invested in research dedicated to understanding and addressing ocean acidification?
5. Adaptive capacity of dependent sectors: Is there an understanding of how ocean acidification will impact various political and socioeconomic sectors, including vulnerable communities, as well as mitigation strategies?
6. Policy coherence: Overall, are policies consistent with evidence-based, science-backed efforts to address climate change and ocean acidification?

As a case study, the researchers used the framework to evaluate the current state of ocean acidification preparedness in Australia which is home to the world’s largest system of coral reefs, vibrant ecosystems that support the livelihoods of more than a billion people worldwide but are uniquely susceptible to acidification.

They found that while Australia is generally well prepared with a deep understanding of the adaptive capacity of vulnerable socioeconomic sectors and management strategies that explicitly address ocean acidification, the country is lacking in policy coherence and broader climate protection measures which may hinder its ability to lower greenhouse gas emissions which are the main contributor to ocean acidification.

“Ocean acidification is not an isolated issue, but rather one that is closely linked to other anthropogenic hazards — in Australia and elsewhere — such as warming, sea level rise, oxygen loss, and eutrophication,” says University of Queensland coral biologist Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, PhD. “Therefore, any policy designed to address ocean acidification either locally or globally must consider the many interconnected factors and their impacts on both ecosystems and society.”

By providing a baseline for countries to assess their preparedness for ocean acidification, the researchers say their framework will also enable researchers, conservationists, and governing bodies at all levels to identify areas for investment or collaboration to ensure their environments and societies are better protected.

“After governments self-assess their readiness for ocean acidification, they’ll have a better sense of where gaps may exist,” says Sarah Cooley, PhD, Director of Climate Science at the Ocean Conservancy. “Gaps will be different for every government — some governments might need to increase fundamental research just to understand how their marine systems will respond to acidification, while others might need to bump up adaptation to safeguard people and ecosystems most likely to be affected by acidification. This self-test will help governments focus future efforts to make sure they are emphasizing the most essential areas for them and can take the necessary steps to address the salient threats from acidification.”

Effects of climate change have mostly been studied in large, long-lived species with low reproductive output. Small mammals with high reproductive rates can usually adapt well to changing environmental conditions, so they have been little studied in the context of climate change. Claudia Fichtel and Peter Kappeler from the German Primate Center — Leibniz Institute for Primate Research (DPZ) have been researching lemurs on Madagascar for many years and have thus built up a unique data set to fill this knowledge gap.

Identifying trends with long-term data

Over a period of 26 years, from 1994 to 2020, Peter Kappeler and Claudia Fichtel studied the demographic structure of a mouse lemur population at the DPZ research station in Madagascar. Climate data from the same period show that the rainy season in this region became increasingly drier and the dry season increasingly warmer. They have now analyzed these data together with colleagues from the University of Zurich and found increasing mortality combined with rising reproductive rates. “These opposing trends have prevented a collapse of the mouse lemur population, but have nevertheless led to a destabilization of the population, as the already fast life cycle of the animals has been further accelerated,” says Claudia Fichtel.

Extinction risk increases

Fluctuating population sizes due to climate change pose a major threat to the animals, and could lead to extinction of the species. “Our results show that even an animal species that is supposedly able to adapt easily to changing environmental conditions thanks to a high reproductive rate is threatened in its survival by climate changes,” says Peter Kappeler. This is bad news, given that the lemurs that only occur in Madagascar are the world’s most endangered mammals. “In the future, data on the demographic stability of a population should also be included when classifying the risk of extinction of an animal species. Since this requires data from long-term observations, this is not yet possible for many animal species,” says Claudia Fichtel.

In Biophysics Reviews, by AIP Publishing, researchers from Sogang University in South Korea and the Harbin Institute of Technology in China identified the most promising advancements and greatest challenges of artificial mitochondria and chloroplasts.

“If scientists can create artificial mitochondria and chloroplasts, we could potentially develop synthetic cells that can generate energy and synthesize molecules autonomously. This would pave the way for the creation of entirely new organisms or biomaterials,” author Kwanwoo Shin said.

In plants, chloroplasts use sunlight to convert water and carbon dioxide into glucose. Mitochondria, found in plants and animals alike, produce energy by breaking down glucose.

Once a cell produces energy, it often uses a molecule called adenosine triphosphate (ATP) to store and transfer that energy. When the cell breaks down the ATP, it releases energy that powers the cell’s functions.

“In other words, ATP acts as the main energy currency of the cell, and it is vital for the cell to perform most of the cellular functions,” said Shin.

The team describes the components required to construct synthetic mitochondria and chloroplasts and identifies proteins as the most important aspects for molecular rotary machinery, proton transport, and ATP production.

Previous studies have replicated components that make up the energy-producing organelles. Some of the most promising work investigates the intermediate operations involved in the complex energy-generating process. By connecting the sequence of proteins and enzymes, researchers have improved energy efficiency.

One of the most significant challenges remaining in trying to reconstruct the energy production organelles is enabling self-adaptation in changing environments to maintain a stable supply of ATP. Future studies must investigate how to improve upon this limiting feature before synthetic cells are self-sustainable.

The authors believe it is important to create artificial cells with biologically realistic energy-generation methods that mimic natural processes. Replicating the entire cell could lead to future biomaterials and lend insight into the past.

“This could be an important milestone in understanding the origin of life and the origin of cells,” Shin said.

Sea Level Data by Satellite

Sea level data gathered Jan. 21 in the Gulf Stream by SWOT’s KaRIn instrument, visualized at left, has 10 times the spatial resolution of data taken over the same area by altimeters on seven other satellites, visualized at right. Red represents sea levels higher than the global average, while blue is lower. Credit: left: NASA/JPL-Caltech; right: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Copernicus Marine Service of ESA

Watch the Latest Water Satellite Unfold Itself in Space

Latest International Water Satellite Packs an Engineering Punch

5 Things to Know About How SWOT Will Look at the World’s Water

The international Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) mission – led by NASA and the French space agency Centre National d’Études Spatiales (CNES) – has sent back some of its first glimpses of water on the planet’s surface, showing ocean currents like the Gulf Stream in unprecedented detail. SWOT is also capturing views of freshwater features such as lakes, rivers, and other water bodies down to about 300 feet (100 meters) wide.

The satellite will measure the elevation of nearly all the water on Earth’s surface and provide one of the most comprehensive surveys yet of our planet’s surface water. SWOT’s measurements of freshwater bodies and the ocean will provide insights into how the ocean influences climate change and the water cycle; how a warming world affects water storage in lakes, rivers, and reservoirs; and how communities can better manage their water resources and prepare for floods and other disasters.

“SWOT’s advanced imagery will empower researchers and advance the way we manage fresh water and the effects of sea level rise across the globe,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. “Water is one of our planet’s most important resources – and it’s proven to be vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. SWOT will provide critical information that communities can use to prepare for the impacts of a warming climate.”

A Whole New View

As seen in these early images, on Jan. 21, 2023, SWOT measured sea level in a part of the Gulf Stream off the coast of North Carolina and Virginia. The two antennas of SWOT’s Ka-band Radar Interferometer (KaRIn) instrument acquired data that was mapped as a pair of wide, colored strips spanning a total of 75 miles (120 kilometers) across. Red and orange areas in the images represent sea levels that are higher than the global average, while the shades of blue represent sea levels that are lower than average.

For comparison, the new data is shown alongside sea surface height data taken by space-based instruments called altimeters. The instruments – widely used to measure sea level – also bounce radar signals off of Earth’s surface to collect their measurements. But traditional altimeters are able to look only at a narrow beam of Earth directly beneath them, unlike KaRIn’s two wide-swath strips that observe sea level as a two-dimensional map.

The spatial resolution of SWOT ocean measurements is 10 times greater than the composite of sea surface height data gathered over the same area by seven other satellites: Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich, Jason-3, Sentinel-3A and 3B, Cryosat-2, Altika, and Hai Yang 2B. The composite image was created using information from the Copernicus Marine Service of ESA (European Space Agency) and shows the same day as the SWOT data.

KaRIn also measured the elevation of water features on Long Island – shown as bright pink splotches nestled within the landscape. (Purple, yellow, green, and blue shades represent different land elevations.)

“Our ability to measure freshwater resources on a global scale through satellite data is of prime importance as we seek to adjust to a changing climate,” said CNES Chairman and CEO Philippe Baptiste. “In this respect, the first views from SWOT give us a clearer picture than ever before. These data will prove highly valuable for the international scientific community in the fields of hydrology, oceanography, and coastal studies.”

This initial inland image is a tantalizing indication of how SWOT can measure details of smaller lakes, ponds, and rivers in ways that satellites could not before. Such data will be used to produce an extraordinary accounting of the freshwater on Earth’s surface in ways useful to researchers, policymakers, and water resource managers.

“The KaRIn instrument took years to develop and build, and it will collect information on bodies of water across the globe – data that will be freely and openly available to everybody who needs it,” said Parag Vaze, SWOT project manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California.

More About the Mission

Launched on Dec. 16, 2022, from Vandenberg Space Force Base in central California, SWOT is now in a period of commissioning, calibration, and validation. Engineers are checking out the performance of the satellite’s systems and science instruments before the planned start of science operations in summer 2023.

The data for these first images was collected by SWOT’s KaRIn instrument, the scientific heart of the satellite. KaRIn has one antenna at each end of a boom that’s 33 feet (10 meters) long. This enables the instrument to look off to either side of a center line directly below the satellite as it bounces microwave signals off Earth’s surface. The returning radar signals arrive at each antenna slightly out of sync, or phase, from one another. When these signals are combined with other information about the antennas and the satellite’s altitude, scientists will be able to map the height of water on Earth’s surface with never-before-seen clarity. KaRIn encountered an issue earlier this year with one of its subsystems; engineers have now resolved the situation, and the instrument is up and running.

SWOT was jointly developed by NASA and CNES, with contributions from the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) and the UK Space Agency. JPL, which is managed for NASA by Caltech in Pasadena, California, leads the U.S. component of the project. For the flight system payload, NASA provided the KaRIn instrument, a GPS science receiver, a laser retroreflector, a two-beam microwave radiometer, and NASA instrument operations. CNES provided the Doppler Orbitography and Radioposition Integrated by Satellite (DORIS) system, the dual frequency Poseidon altimeter (developed by Thales Alenia Space), the KaRIn radio-frequency subsystem (together with Thales Alenia Space and with support from the UK Space Agency), the satellite platform, and ground operations. CSA provided the KaRIn high-power transmitter assembly. NASA provided the launch vehicle and the agency’s Launch Services Program, based at Kennedy Space Center, managed the associated launch services.

To learn more about SWOT, visit:

https://swot.jpl.nasa.gov/

News Media Contacts

Jane J. Lee / Andrew Wang

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

818-354-0307 / 626-379-6874

[email protected] / [email protected]

Earth911 is honoring the 52 years of Earth Day with 52 Actions for the Earth. Each week through Earth Day 2023, we will share an action you can take to invest in the Earth and make your own life more sustainable. Ironically, an intense focus on productivity leads to a lot of waste. The constant hustle creates diminishing returns as exhausted workers become ever more inefficient, pouring more energy and resources into marginal increases in output. This week, give yourself and the planet a chance to recharge. Take action for the Earth by sitting still.

Action: Take a Seat

Toxic Productivity

Despite the popularity of productivity-focused TED Talks and entire sections in the bookstore dedicated to motivational memoirs and how-to books by CEOs (or their ghostwriters), there is growing awareness of the harm of hustle culture. Nowadays, we don’t even slow down on vacation. The emphasis on output at all costs leads to burnout and isolation for people who sacrifice their time and relationships in favor of “results.”

The drawbacks extend beyond human sacrifices to the environment as well. Traditional attitudes pit the environment against economics — environmental protections are viewed as a burden on economic activity, raising costs without increasing output. The goal of maximizing output goes unquestioned, despite ample evidence that there can be too much of a good thing.

Slowing Down

There’s a reason the word “slow” is linked to so many environmental movements. Speed comes with an environmental cost. Air freight produces 12.5 times more carbon emissions than shipping. Slow food emphasizes quality over quantity and encourages agricultural practices that restore the Earth while feeding its people. Instead of billions served or calories per dollar, slow food thinks in terms of relationships and health. Slow fashion eschews novelty in favor of respect for the materials, workers, and artists that create the clothes we wear. It encourages people to value what they already own and express themselves through carefully selected pieces rather than chasing trends.

No matter what field you work in, it’s easy to get overwhelmed with deadlines and to-do lists. But slowing down and giving yourself time to observe the big picture is necessary to make sure you’re not losing track of what’s really important.

Take a Seat

Any artist will tell you that stillness is required for creative thinking. Whether you contemplate the view or your life, sitting still could give you ideas for solving environmental or other problems. This week, give yourself permission to take a seat. Find a pleasant place to sit outside and commit to sitting there for one hour. Set an alarm so you’re not tempted to check your phone. Don’t set goals or rules for yourself. Just look around and observe the area around you. Is this environment healthy? How does it make you feel? What species can you see? Could you do something to make your view – or another place – a better habitat?

It’s okay if your mind wanders away from the nature in front of you and on to mundane topics. If you don’t learn anything about the local environment. You might surprise yourself in those moments of stillness by discovering insights and possibilities that you’ve overlooked in your daily hustle. But don’t worry if nothing bubbles up – simply existing outdoors and observing nature without a measurable objective has intrinsic value.

The effects of global climate change are broad and impact everyone, as well as Earth’s natural systems.

Much has been written about the major impacts of climate change. Effects such as rising global surface temperatures, higher sea levels, longer and more intense heat waves, melting glaciers and ice sheets, polar sea ice loss, extreme weather and climate events, and impacts on animal habitats are well-documented and in the news regularly.

In this new NASA Climate feature series, we’re examining some of the lesser-known, and often surprising, ways Earth’s changing climate is affecting our world.

Before the Industrial Revolution, human travels had little impact on Earth’s climate. That changed once we began burning fossil fuels to power trains, boats, cars, trucks, and planes. Today, transportation generates about a fourth of global carbon dioxide emissions, second only to the electric power sector.

Climate change is affecting transportation in major ways, such as the ongoing shift to zero-emissions automobiles. But some of the impacts of climate on transportation are less obvious. Here are a few.

Bumpier Skies

Our changing atmosphere may make future airline flights bumpier by strengthening vertical wind shear in jet streams. Jet streams are fast-moving belts of wind that travel around the planet in wavy, meandering paths in the upper parts of the atmosphere. Aviators often use or avoid them to increase the efficiency of their flights.

Vertical wind shear creates irregular air motions called turbulence, which is a significant and costly issue for airlines, resulting in injuries, damaged aircraft, delayed flights, and inspections and investigations.

Sometimes bumpy flights happen without significant cloudiness or thunderstorms. This phenomenon is known as “clear-air turbulence.” British atmospheric scientist Paul Williams of the University of Reading studies clear-air turbulence. Among his findings:

• By 2050, the frequency of reported clear-air turbulence is expected to double, and the average strength of turbulence is expected to increase by 10 to 40%.
• Severe turbulence at typical airplane cruising altitudes could become two to three times more common. This will impact airspace over large regions of the Northern Hemisphere.

NASA develops technologies to improve aviation efficiency and maintain safety. Researchers at NASA’s Langley Research Center recently designed a special infrasound microphone that can “hear” ultralow frequencies generated by turbulence. This technology was tested on an uncrewed stratospheric glider called HiDRON.

Climate change can also make it harder for aircraft to take off. As temperatures rise, air becomes less dense, so planes have a harder time generating the lift they need to become airborne. Because of this, some aircraft runways may not be long enough for certain planes to take off. It also might force aircraft operators to reduce the takeoff weight of planes and helicopters.

Arctic Travel Gets Both Safer and More Dangerous

One of its most significant changes to the planet is the continuing decline of Arctic sea ice. Over the past 40 years, the amount of ice cover at both the annual maximum and minimum has shrunk, and the percentage of thick ice that survives from year to year has also dropped. As reported in 2018, this has opened the Arctic to new commerce opportunities, but also to serious environmental concerns. At the center of both lies the shipping industry.

On the positive side, reduced sea ice cover is increasingly allowing ships to sail across the Arctic Ocean without support from icebreaker ships. This can significantly shorten travel times between Asia, Europe, and North America. As a result, many nations are preparing for more Arctic shipping.

There are also negatives. Scientists and environmentalists worry more shipping activity will increase pollution and oil spills and disturb marine life. And ships are still encountering plenty of ice as they sail closer to the North Pole and in waters that are not well charted. Increased exploration and tourism also mean search-and-rescue operations become more challenging for the U.S. and Canadian coast guards. Finally, some traditional travel routes over the sea ice (used by snowmobiles, trucks, and other vehicles) could become unsafe as the ice thins.

(Not) Rollin’ on the River

Climate change is expected to increase the frequency and/or intensity of droughts and floods, so the impacts on water levels in rivers and reservoirs may become more severe and erratic.

The impacts on shipping cargo by boat could be significant. Water levels can drop such that rivers can become too shallow to navigate, and some ships may have to carry less cargo to safely navigate a river. In the United States, cargo transport along the Mississippi River has been impacted in recent years. For example, low water in 2012 closed an 11-mile stretch of the Mississippi River near Memphis. Such closures have a big economic impact along the river.

Researchers at the Ancient Genomics Laboratory at the Crick studied available genome-wide DNA from 677 individuals dating to Stone Age Europe, spanning the movement of Neolithic farmers from the Near East into Europe about 8000 years ago, where they mixed with Mesolithic hunter-gatherers already in Europe.

They were interested in whether any particular genes might have coded for adaptations important to early farming groups, and looked for evidence of rapid evolution in these populations.

Since about 20% of the ancestry of descendant late Stone Age people could be traced to the local European hunter-gatherers, the researchers also asked whether any particular genes showed evidence of more hunter-gatherer ancestry.

They found that a large genetic region responsible for immune responses to diseases — the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) — showed both the strongest evidence of rapid evolution, and more Mesolithic hunter-gatherer ancestry than expected, suggesting that genetic variants in the MHC region already present in Europe were passed down preferentially.

It has previously been thought that the transition to farming was associated with increased natural selection on immunity variants, as people started living closer to animals and eating more animal products. This research supports this view, but also shows that diversity in immune genes may be just as important as adaptation to lifestyle.

The research team speculates that either the hunter-gatherers already had genetic adaptations against bacteria, viruses or other microorganisms in Europe, or that having many different forms of the genes was advantageous.

Tom Davy, PhD student at the Francis Crick Institute and lead author, said: “It was really exciting to see for the first time that immunity is important for the transition to farming in a prehistoric population. The later Neolithic people had far more farmer ancestry in general, so we expected to see the same at the MHC region, especially as many diseases have been linked to Neolithic periods. But we saw about 50:50 ancestry from Neolithic farmers and Mesolithic hunter-gatherers here, showing that natural selection favoured genes from the hunter-gatherers already in Europe.

“At the moment we’re not quite sure whythis happened, but a proposal is that the European hunter-gatherers had genetic variations which allowed them to fight Europe-specific diseases. Or picking up a variety of genes from both hunter-gatherers and farmers was beneficial because it resulted in lots of diversity at this major group of genes, allowing people to better fight off disease.”

The team also confirmed results from previous studies, showing that genes coding for skin pigmentation showed the greatest representation for Neolithic farmer ancestry, with these variations coming into Europe from the Near East. This may be to maintain vitamin D levels when sources, such as diet and exposure to sunlight, change.

Pontus Skoglund, Group Leader of the Ancient Genomics Laboratory at the Crick, said: “The shift to farming was an important transition all over the world, resulting in changing diets and exposure to infectious disease.

“Previous research has suggested that adaptation in genetic regions relating to immunity, such as the MHC, has been important in recent time periods, and this research now provides similar evidence for adaptation in prehistory. By growing the ancient genomic record, we will be able to better understand the role of immunity in other periods of the human past.”

By combining lab experiments and mathematical modelling, researchers at McGill University and the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology have found a way to predict the movement of species that could guide conservation efforts to reconnect fragmented habitats.

The researchers determined that the survival of species lies in the interplay between their patterns of movement, such as how far they will travel to move between habitat fragments, and the way the corridors that link habitat patches are oriented.

They also found that the same landscape can promote the spread of certain species and impede the spread of others, depending on how far they will travel.

“We found that to predict the spread of species, we need to combine knowledge of their behaviour and about the network of potential corridors that link the habitat patches,” said McGill University Biology Professor Andrew Gonzalez, the lead author on a new study published in PNAS.

Lab experiments and mathematical modeling

The researchers reached this conclusion by combining a laboratory experiment with theory.

They first built patchy habitat networks in which to study the movement behaviour and population growth of a model species, the tiny, insect-like springtail Folsomia candida.

Then, they used a mathematical model to explore other scenarios not addressed by the experiment, such as networks containing many more habitat patches than in the experiments. Gonzalez and his team found that the time taken for a population to colonize a network of habitat fragments can be predicted by the distances between habitat fragments and how easily organisms move between fragments.

Informing conservation efforts

Conservation efforts in patchy landscapes are geared toward reconnecting isolated habitat fragments with corridors to help organisms find the resources they need to avoid extinction in the long run.

“We wanted to give conservation actors a way to quantify and predict the connectivity of patchy landscapes,” said Gonzalez.

“This knowledge is valuable for conservation NGOs because it could guide conservation action to reconnect patchy landscapes and ensure the long-term spread and persistence of threatened species.” said Bronwyn Rayfield, the researcher who collected the experimental data.

The researchers also believe the results can be used to assist with habitat corridor restoration efforts that are already underway in many parts of the world.

The Canadian federal government is currently preparing a strategy for the conservation of habitat connectivity and investing in protecting and restoring habitat corridors. The Global Biodiversity Framework agreed upon at the COP15 Convention on Biological Diversity also places a great emphasis on restoring habitat connectivity worldwide.

“We believe our results provide new knowledge to guide action by nations looking to achieve the 2030 target for habitat connectivity in the coming decade,” said Gonzalez, who is the founding director of the Quebec Centre for Biodiversity Science.

The countries of the world have agreed to take joint responsibility for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and an increasing number have introduced, or are considering introducing, a carbon tax. Figures from the OECD for example also show that in 2021 alone, 51 countries provided tax relief in the form of fossil fuel subsidies — at a cost of USD 697 billion. This was double that of the previous year and three times the amount needed to fight extreme poverty globally each year.

“One of the most important measures by far to reduce carbon emissions is the removal of fossil fuel subsidies. They encourage increased production and consumption of fossil fuels and are counter-productive for effective carbon pricing. Removing fossil fuel subsidies would also free up public funds for investment in social and economic development, especially in developing countries,” says Niklas Harring, docent in political science.

Highest subsidies in developing countries

Many of the countries that subsidise the consumption of fossil fuels are in fact developing countries. Removing subsidies on coal, gas and oil, for example, would result in significantly higher costs for both business and private consumers.

“Transitioning to a fossil-free society is a huge challenge in many developing countries, and increased fuel prices risk hitting the most vulnerable the hardest. The political feasibility of removing fossil fuel subsidies very much depends on the extent to which the public accept (or reject) such a change, and our study is the first to investigate this,” says Sverker C. Jagers, Professor of Political Science.

Niklas Harring and Sverker C. Jagers, together with colleagues at the University of Gothenburg, Luleå Technical University and the University of Delaware, compared people’s attitudes to climate policy instruments in Ecuador, Egypt, India, Indonesia and Mexico. These are some of the countries that currently subsidise their production and consumption of fossil fuels the most. In the study involving close to 7,000 respondents, the researchers looked at differences in attitudes to the introduction of a domestic carbon tax and to a proposal to remove subsidies on fossil fuels.

“The respondents were as opposed to a carbon tax as they were to removing fossil fuel subsidies,” says Niklas Harring.

Importance of policy design

The researchers investigated whether the respondents’ attitudes to removing subsidies on fossil fuels for private consumption would change if told where the revenue would be used instead — termed revenue recycling. They formulated a policy proposal for the removal of fossil fuel subsidies that was combined with examples of various investments that could be made with the money instead: investments in welfare systems, income tax reductions, investments in climate adaptation measures, and cash transfers to the poorest and most affected households.

“The respondents who were told where the money would go instead turned out to be more positive towards the proposal than those who were not given any information about alternative revenue use. Climate adaptation measures were most likely to increase support for the removal of fuel subsidies in Mexico and Ecuador, although this proposal did not increase this support in Egypt, for example.”

The results indicate that decision-makers should take country-specific circumstances into account when designing policy proposals.

“For us, it’s important to understand why some policy proposals encounter public resistance and not others, but also to better understand how policy design can help to influence people’s attitudes towards climate policy. Our study shows that policy design can also play a role,” says Sverker C. Jagers.