A large majority of citizens in Sweden and the United States is willing to pay to for slowing climate change. Findings from a new multi-country survey shows that 91.5% of Swedes and 71% of Americans are willing to pay to avoid the consequences of climate change that would arise from a 4°F temperature increase by 2050. Moreover, Swedes and Americans are willing to pay 2-3% of their per capita income (or analogously, the same percentage of GDP) to prevent a warming of more than 4°F by 2050.
The new study, entitled “Sharing the load: A multi-country survey of the willingness to pay for slowing climate change,” will be released at the international climate negotiations meeting in Copenhagen.
The Swedish study team is from the University of Gothenburg: Fredrik Carlsson, Elina Lampi, Åsa Löfgren and Thomas Sterner, plus Mitesh Kataria from the Max Planck Institute of Economics, Jena.
The US team features Alan Krupnick and Susie Chung from Resources for the Future, Washington DC.
The China study (available 1/2010) is led by Qin Ping, Visiting Scholar at Resources for the Future and a recent PhD from University of Gothenburg. The Chinese survey is currently being administered, and those results are forthcoming.
Short summary of the report:Sharing the load: A multi-country survey of the willingness to pay for slowing climate change (pdf)