ifo Institute: Germans Give Only Low Approval for Climate Money
The “climate money” planned by Germany’s traffic light government has met with little approval among the country’s population. This is shown by a representative survey conducted by the Ludwig Erhard ifo Center for Social Market Economy and Institutional Economics in cooperation with the Nuremberg Institute for Market Decisions (NIM). “Although Germans are not fundamentally opposed to the idea of climate money, other uses for the revenue from carbon pricing are much more popular,” says Sarah Necker, Director of the Ludwig Erhard ifo Center for Social Market Economy and Institutional Economics in Fürth.
Most popular was the proposal to invest the revenue from carbon pricing in climate-friendly measures: on a scale of −3 (disapproval) to +3 (approval), the average value for this measure is +1.5. The second-highest approval rating (+1.1) was for using the additional revenue from carbon pricing to reduce income tax.
In the survey, the researchers asked participants to rate three different forms of climate money: socially responsible climate money, targeted compensation for particularly hard-hit households, and a lump sum. The respondents don’t consider any of these to be particularly good. “Socially responsible climate money,” which would be paid out only to people with a gross monthly income of up to EUR 4,000, is the most popular (+0.8). There was slightly less support for targeted compensation for households that are hit particularly hard by carbon pricing (+0.7). Climate money that would be paid out as a lump sum to all residents across the board received the least approval (+0.5). “Our results show that the German population prefers to pay out the climate money to low-income or particularly hard-hit households rather than paying a lump sum to everyone,” says Michael Zürn, Senior Researcher at NIM.
The results are based on an ifo Institute survey conducted in cooperation with the Nuremberg Institute for Market Decisions (NIM), which was carried out by the GfK eBUS in September 2023. A representative sample of people in Germany aged 18–74 was surveyed.
Wollen die Deutschen beim Klimaschutz Vorreiter sein und wenn ja, wie? Maßnahmen aus Bevölkerungsperspektive
ifo Institut, München, 2024
ifo Schnelldienst, 2024, 77, Nr. 01, 39-43
The Nuremberg Institute for Market Decisions (NIM) is a non-profit institute for research on consumer and market decisions. At the interface between science and practice, NIM examines how decisions of consumers and company decision-makers change in the face of new technological and social trends – and what the resulting impacts are. From its research, NIM generates new and relevant insights into how people can make better decisions in markets.
