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Climate politics sounds increasingly polarised. But in Europe, support for climate isn’t driven by die-hard supporters or opponents. It tends to be shaped by a large “conditional middle” (33%).

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This was a real team effort - many thanks to Ella Henninger, Camille Fournier de Lauriere, Vally Koubi, Raeesa Moolla, Liam Beiser-McGrath, and Thomas Bernauer for a great collaboration.

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Air pollution is a top priority in all cities. When asked to chose, 56% choose cleaner air over faster economic growth.

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Majorities support stricter industry rules, expanded public transport, and household electrification - even when told these cost money.

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Keith Smith @ekeithsmith.bsky.social · 07/04/2026

Policymakers in polluted cities often hold back on ambitious clean air policy, worried the public will resist costs or prioritise economic growth instead.

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Policy takeaway: support the most accepted low-cost actions, make high-impact tech affordable for lower-income households, and don’t spend political capital on measures with little emissions payoff.

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Keith Smith @ekeithsmith.bsky.social · 07/04/2026

Bottom line: people tend to pick options that are cheap and require fewer lifestyle changes. But there’s a big distributional point: uptake of high-impact (and expensive) technologies is strongly income-dependent.

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Keith Smith @ekeithsmith.bsky.social · 07/04/2026

A lot of climate mitigation advice ignores a key constraint: will people actually do it? In our new paper, we use a “personalised scenario testing” tool and ask people to build a plan to cut their own emissions by 30% (Swiss sample, n=2,793).

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Reposted by Keith Smith

Loïc Berger @loicberger.bsky.social · 02/04/2026

I had the pleasure to discuss our work on climate policy acceptability @franceculture.fr "Avec Sciences" The big insight? 1/3 of Europeans are “pivot voters”, neither for nor against climate policies, but the ones who decide if a measure succeeds or fails www.radiofrance.fr/francecultur...

radiofrance.fr

Le destin des politiques climatiques dépend d’électeurs ni pour, ni contre, ni neutre

C'est le milieu intermédiaire, celles et ceux qui changent d'avis. Selon cette nouvelle étude parue dans Nature Climate Change, ces électeurs représentent 33% des répondants, et peuvent donc faire bas...

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These findings are from a survey conducted by the Horizon-EU funded CAPABLE consortium. We collected 19,328 responses across 13 EU countries, evaluating 15 concrete climate policy proposals.

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3) Don’t confuse noisy opposition with public opinion. A large share of Europeans are not hardened opponents. They are conditional supporters — and that’s where many political battles are won or lost. That’s the coalition that decides what passes.

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2) Treat instrument choice as political strategy Taxes, bans, subsidies, standards, exemptions: these are not just technical levers. They are cues about cost, control, and flexibility.

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Some key takeaways: 1) Make fairness legible. People react strongly to who pays and who benefits — and whether support for vulnerable groups is credible.

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Opinions within conditional middle matter electorally. They are a crucial swing constituency, most likely to vote for parties within the centrist and centre-right that anchor European parliamentary majorities

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We also asked where “climate money” should go (e.g., Social Climate Fund revenues). The conditional middle prioritises visible benefits, especially support for vulnerable households and adaptation-oriented spending, over adaptation and compensating displaced fossil fuel workers.

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Small swings amongst the conditional middle can have a big impact on what’s politically feasible. In a simple simulation, moving only the fence-sitting slice from neutral → support raises # of majority-backed policies across Europe from 4/15 to 10/15.

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This group is moved by what they think a policy will cost and deliver — who pays, who benefits, and how intrusive it feels - and not by political orientation, climate concern or sociodemos (together explaining only ~5% of variance)

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Climate politics sounds increasingly polarised. But in Europe, support for climate isn’t driven by die-hard supporters or opponents. It tends to be shaped by a large “conditional middle” (33%).

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In the following days, we will share more specific insights for each of the city reports - Accra, Delhi, Jakarta and Johannesburg

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Strong demand for pollution mitigation policies, from fines on waste burning, to banning old polluting vehicles: People support policies, even when they might bear an economic cost.

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Across the four cities, we find: High levels of concern about air pollution: respondents selected air pollution as one of their most important worries, alongside public safety & their own economic situation.

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We conducted surveys with respondents (n = 11,556) in Jakarta (ID), Delhi (IN), Accra (GH) and Johannesburg (ZA) between January and April last year. The questions mostly focused on air pollution perceptions and expectations regarding government mitigation action.

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Citizens play an important role in fighting air pollution around the world. Yet, in many of the most polluted areas, we still don’t know what people think about the problem of air pollution, who they hold responsible, or what they want their governments to do about it.

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Understanding what people think about air pollution, and what they want their government to do about it (if anything) is one of the key open questions faced by governments trying to solve air pollution.

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Brian Nosek @briannosek.bsky.social · 24/05/2025

Very excited to share the release of our data-based report series – “What do people think and want?” - focusing on air pollution perceptions across four cities facing high levels of air pollution (Accra, Delhi, Jakarta and Johannesburg). ib.ethz.ch/research/air...

ib.ethz.ch

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Reposted by Keith Smith

There is a new Executive Order that is closely related to many of the topics promoted in the science reform movement. It deserves a close read as it will surely have implications for how some promoted reforms are implemented in policy and practice. My hot take 🧵 www.whitehouse.gov/presidential...

whitehouse.gov

Restoring Gold Standard Science

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including section 7301 of title 5, United

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Reposted by Keith Smith

GESIS Training @gesistraining.bsky.social · 13/05/2025

Need causal insights into how people make decisions? Conjoint survey experiments let you unpack complex choices in realistic settings. Learn to design, implement, and analyze them in our #GESISsummerschool course with @phanxi.bsky.social & Lukas Rudolph. Book Now ➡️ t1p.de/GSS25-C6

GESIS Summer School in Survey Methodolgy
Introduction to Conjoint Survey Experiments
04 to 08 August | Cologne
Franziska Quoß (GESIS) & Lukas Rudolph (University of Konstanz)

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A minor typo here. I meant to write “broad economic and health benefits”, but the story remains the same. Lots of non-air pollution environmental co-benefits as well with such actions (alongside economic and health ones).

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More, better and enhanced data can certainly help policy making, implementation and citizen awareness, but the absence of data should not necessitate the absence of action. Nor is more data necessary before effective solutions can be implemented

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Many pollution mitigating solutions (waste management, electrification, road infrastructure, public transit, renewable energy investment) are “no regrets” policies, having broad environmental and health benefits, and should be adopted in any case

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The evidence of air pollution is undeniable in many lower/middle income countries. Regardless of absolute levels of exposure, mitigating measures can save lives. Governments don’t need to wait for more evidence before acting

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Persistent inequalities in global air quality monitoring should not delay pollution mitigation | PNAS

Great inequalities persist in air quality monitoring. People in rich countries are 12x more likely than to have monitoring. But that doesn’t mean we need to wait for more monitors to reduce air pollution… ⬇️ new paper with Camille de Lauriere and Ella Henninger in PNAS : www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

pnas.org

Air pollution is a global health crisis that disproportionately affects lower- and middle-income countries. We examine global air quality monitorin...

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Keith Smith @ekeithsmith.bsky.social · 19/03/2025

A small favor to ask for the hive mind of air pollution people 👋. I’m looking for an archive of the US Embassy monitoring data (previously on AirNow.gov). Does anyone by chance know where a copy of these data still exists? Many thanks in advance!

airnow.gov

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Keith Smith @ekeithsmith.bsky.social · 18/01/2025

Keep an eye out 👀for first results around mid-May 2025 🥳

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Keith Smith @ekeithsmith.bsky.social · 18/01/2025

Very grateful for the support from SNIS and SNF on this project, and the amazing teamwork from Raeesa Moolla, Ella Henninger, Thomas Bernauer, Vally Koubi, Camille Laurier de Fournier.

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Keith Smith @ekeithsmith.bsky.social · 18/01/2025

Day 6 of survey data collection in townships around Johannesburg with the absolutely amazing students from Wits (Geography,Archaeology, and Environmental Studies) Project focuses on air pollution awareness, protective behaviors and citizen demands for mitigation in lower income neighborhoods.

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Taken together, the 15 democratic countries covered in our two studies account for 35% of the global population 🧑‍🤝‍🧑 👭and 55% of global GDP 💱. Environmental 🪴and labour 👩‍🏭🧑‍🔧improving policies can be received positively by a majority of citizens across import and export dependent states.

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We find, somewhat surprisingly, similar levels of support for stringent supply chain regulations in IN and BR as in OECD countries. We find that support is driven by high levels of perceived effectiveness of policies 💪, outweighing cost concerns 💸.

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Classical presumptions about environmental policies being perceived as anti-development and concerns over ‘green imperialism’ would suggest pushback against OECD-like measures in middle-income states.

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We previously found strong support for sustainability regulations across the 12 largest OECD states (⬇️). As the impact of global supply chain policies would be deeply felt in middle income states, we explored what people want in BR, ID, IN 🇧🇷🇮🇩🇮🇳 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

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