This seminar is part of the Climate Cookies & Coffee series of the Belgian Climate Centre. This is a new seminar series launched by the Belgian Climate Centre to foster knowledge-sharing, collaboration, and interdisciplinary discussion among climate researchers.
For the first edition, the Belgian Climate Centre will welcome Jeroen Barrez (HIVA - KULeuven) who will talk on: 'The path of least resistance? Enhancing public acceptability of carbon pricing'.
Public resistance is a major barrier to implementing the ambitious climate policies needed to keep global warming below 2 degrees Celsius. Despite that the objective of mitigating climate change is widely accepted, public support for these climate policies and particularly for carbon pricing remains weak. While carbon pricing is recognised as an effective and efficient tool to drive the low-carbon transition, many countries either do not adopt it at all or only apply very low pricing levels. This is also the case for Belgium which lacks explicit carbon pricing mechanisms other than the existing EU Emission Trading System for industry and power production. This presentation will focus on the public acceptability of carbon pricing policies in Belgium, highlighting revenue use and perceived policy impacts as main drivers. An important finding is that carbon pricing is more acceptable when embedded in a comprehensive policy package, particularly if revenue use is clearly communicated from the outset. However, public acceptability varies across population subgroups with differing climate attitudes. Allocating carbon pricing revenues to reduce other taxes, such as labour tax reductions, can enhance the acceptability across diverse societal groups, including those with more sceptical climate attitudes. Policymakers must consider the diversity in policy preferences and use carbon pricing revenues in ways that enhance overall acceptability.
