In this article, we use a dynamic general equilibrium model to examine the effect of the move to net zero in the United Kingdom on productivity. One argument is that the transition is likely to be productivity-reducing, as it will involve a move from more- to less-efficient means of producing. Alternatively, it could be argued that the transition will be productivity-enhancing, as the capital investment required to bring about this move leads to a rise in productivity, both within the specific ‘greening’ industries and more generally via productivity spillovers to the rest of the economy. Our model enables us to examine how this potential trade-off varies depending on whether we look at the short, medium or long run. We find that the introduction of a carbon tax, applied to encourage the move towards net zero, reduced GDP and total hours worked, but, since total hours fell by more than GDP, increased productivity. As electricity becomes more substitutable for petrol and gas, the effect on productivity becomes more positive as GDP recovers while total hours remain permanently lower than initially. Finally, our results suggest that unless investment in green technology leads to significant technological gains elsewhere, it is unlikely that the move to net zero will have a large effect on productivity growth above and beyond the direct effect resulting from the capital deepening that will be associated with it.

This article examines whether the effectiveness of three justification framings for a road traffic emission trading system (ETS) in increasing public acceptance depends on political party preference and levels of political trust. The framings emphasized increased energy independence, economic resilience, and efficient climate mitigation. Data were collected via an online survey experiment in Finland, March 2024 (n = 1,485). Although the justification effects were generally limited, the energy independence framing increased policy acceptance among supporters of the populist radical right Finns Party. Moreover, justification effects were minimal among individuals with high political trust but tended to trigger backlash among those with low trust. Our findings contribute to the literature on climate policy communication by showing that framing effects on policy acceptance depend not only on political preferences but also on political trust.

John Broome and Duncan Foley argue that future generations should shoulder the full burden of climate mitigation. To achieve this, they propose that economists design a new institution they dub “the World Climate Bank.” Their argument appeals primarily to self-interest and to the idea of making a Pareto improvement that delivers “efficiency without sacrifice.” This article argues against their strategy on both ethical and pragmatic grounds. In general, “making the grandchildren pay” poses a serious threat to future generations and humanity’s progress. What is needed is a “Climate Justice World Bank” that respects principles of global and intergenerational ethics.

Climate impacts extend beyond physical destruction to include widespread financial distress. This article explores the role that debt relief policies – particularly personal insolvency or bankruptcy law – might play within a range of measures to raise the capacity of individuals to withstand climate-related shocks. Through the cancellation of unpayable debt, personal insolvency acts as a form of insurance against the unavoidable risks inherent in a volatile and unpredictable economy. Reviewing the links between climate impacts, debt and default, and the inevitable gaps in supports to victims of these impacts, the paper makes a case for personal insolvency as a rules-based system for stabilising chaotic financial distress associated with disasters and crises. As an extraordinary exception to the law’s usual orientation toward upholding past obligations and facilitating market allocations, bankruptcy might represent an internal means of accommodating the disruptions and contradictions with which climate change confronts the legal system.

We empirically examine the impact of international climate finance transfers on recipient countries’ carbon emissions. We analyse the effect of mitigation and adaptation finance using emission data of 164 non-OECD countries from 2000 to 2017. We use a distributed lag model in first differences, a panel method that allows us to abstract from possible feedback from current emissions to future transfers. We address potential reverse causality while accounting for dynamic effects. We control for other factors that could be correlated with both climate finance flows and emissions. Contrary to expectations, we find that public mitigation finance tends to increase emissions, potentially due to some misreporting of development aid as climate finance. Public adaptation finance appears to drive an even greater increase in emissions. We explain this by the energy-intensive nature of adaptation measures. Transfers under the Clean Development Mechanism reduce emissions modestly after five years.

We surveyed economics and finance professionals on the transition to a low-carbon economy, assessing risks, opportunities and stakeholder responsibilities. Findings reveal that respondents view the transition as an opportunity for the financial sector, with a modest increase in banking risks. Most respondents agreed that governments hold the primary responsibility for climate mitigation policies, with carbon tax as the favoured solution. Additionally, respondents perceived the COVID-19 pandemic to have a neutral or positive impact on the transition, while the Ukraine war to have a strong negative impact. Notably, opinions differ based on environmental consciousness and professional roles, with environmentally conscious individuals expressing more optimism.

Stringent policies that significantly increase the cost of greenhouse gas emissions, such as CO$_2$, are increasingly necessary for mitigating climate change. Yet while richer individuals in society generate the most CO$_2$ emissions and thus will face the largest absolute cost burden, they also tend to be more supportive of stringent environmental policies. In this paper, we examine how information about the distribution of carbon emissions by income affects support for carbon taxation. While carbon taxation is widely advocated as the most efficient policy for mitigating climate change, it faces significant political hurdles due to its distributional costs. Using original survey data, with an embedded experiment, we find that providing information about the actual distribution of household CO$_2$ emissions by income significantly changes individuals' support for carbon taxation. These effects are particularly pronounced at the bottom of the household income distribution, leading to increased support for costly climate policies. However, individuals who believe that carbon taxes will reduce their income continue to hold their level of support for carbon taxation. Our findings have significant implications for understanding the public's response to the distributional consequences of the green transitions and ultimately their political feasibility.

Media reporting and academic research into young climate civil society organisations (CSOs) often focus on organisations using direct, confrontational and often controversial actions, but to what extent is this a true picture of young climate organisations? This paper examines the differences between young and old climate and environmental CSOs in the Netherlands. Drawing on niche theory, it uses set-theoretic typology building to examine the ways in which 39 young and old Dutch CSOs construct configurational organisational niches by narrowing down their membership and issue, using innovative strategies and developing stable financing sources. It finds that although there are significant differences between young and old CSOs in how they narrow down their membership and issues, their strategies are not significantly different: in other words, a focus on civil disobedience alone does not paint the whole picture of young climate groups.

This paper investigates the conditions under which subnational concerns shape public assessments of international climate governance. In line with existing literature, we maintain that costly policy adjustments fuel negative views of international co-operation in policy-exposed regions. At the same time, we argue that the more resentful relations are with the national center of politics, the more sympathetic these regions are to international institutions and global governance. Based on geographically targeted survey data from the United Kingdom, we find that fossil fuel-intensive regions with strong, institutionalized regional politics have more positive assessments of international climate co-operation than structurally similar regions where regional political institutions are less pronounced. The findings show that regional politics characteristics are key for understanding climate policy beliefs among citizens that bear the brunt of adjustments to international climate agreements.

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a global public health challenge that, like climate change, demands urgent, coordinated, multi-sectoral action. Yet, responses to AMR may be ill-suited to local contexts, overlook historical inequalities, or dismiss marginalised knowledge systems. Some of these concerns can be discussed using the concept of a just transition, which aims to ensure that “no one is left behind,” “all voices are heard,” and past injustices are addressed. However, framing justice in these terms is insufficient. We argue for a more multifaceted and broader-scoped understanding of what justice demands in a just transition for AMR. We examine existing justice frameworks in AMR literature and discuss two cases that motivate our call for including both more forms of justice in a multifaceted concept of a just transition and a broader scope of justice. The first case involves over-the-counter antibiotic access in the Kibera informal settlement near Nairobi, highlighting structural injustices resulting from colonial oppression and what an Ubuntu philosophy would show as injustice. The second case concerns veterinary prescription requirements for Maasai pastoralists’ livestock farming in southern Kenya and highlights epistemic and distributive injustices, as well as injustices that befall non-human animals. These examples reveal distinct injustices shaped by socio-cultural and ecological contexts.

Most people are concerned about climate change and want policymakers to address it. But how? To investigate which policy options are more versus less popular, with whom, and why, we collected data in four European countries on attitudes toward 16 policies: taxes, bans, regulations, and subsidies/spending. We argue that support for different policies should reflect perceptions of policies’ net costs, and that such perceptions are likely influenced by people’s political trust. We tested this expectation by randomly assigning survey respondents to read different versions of given policies and confirmed that individuals with low political trust, who are less supportive overall of most policies, are most sensitive to variation in implied costs. We argue this interaction effect is a previously untested implication of the influential theory that political trust operates as a heuristic, and it helps explain policies’ varying popularity, including the puzzle of why carbon taxes are highly unpopular.