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Unveiling the Price of Green

Perceptions of Socio-Ecological Inequality and the Demand for Distributive Justice in Climate Policies

Merlin Schaeffer and Sofie Andersen

2025-08-01

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Environmental justice theory (EJT)

  • Original EJT: Marginalized populations face disproportionate burden of environmental hazards (Schlosberg, 2007; Rüttenauer and Best, 2021)
  • EJT Extension: Costs of the green transition,
    or limitations to participate in it.
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Environmental justice theory (EJT)

  • Original EJT: Marginalized populations face disproportionate burden of environmental hazards (Schlosberg, 2007; Rüttenauer and Best, 2021)
  • EJT Extension: Costs of the green transition,
    or limitations to participate in it.

⇒ Support for climate policies
is curbed by justice concerns
(Liebe and Dobers, 2020; Diekmann, 2024)

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A Survey Experiment

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Inequality elicitation

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Inequality elicitation

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Inequality elicitation

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Transition cost elicitation

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Transition cost elicitation

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Transition cost elicitation

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Correction

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Learning

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Correction effects

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Priming through the elicitation?

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Conclusion

⇒ Support for climate policies
is curbed by justice concerns
(Liebe and Dobers, 2020; Diekmann, 2024)

  • Most people underestimate income and emissions inequality.
  • Ca. half also underestimate relative cost of transitioning to green technologies for lower income families.
  • Factual correction increases justice concerns, but has no effect on policy support.

Across two different kinds of scenarios (housing and mobility costs), we do not find evidence for this hypothesis.

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References

Diekmann, A. (2024). Klimakrise. Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft mbH & Co. KG.

Liebe, U. and G. M. Dobers (2020). "Measurement of Fairness Perceptions in Energy Transition Research: A Factorial Survey Approach". In: Sustainability, p. 8084.

Rüttenauer, T. and H. Best (2021). "Environmental inequality and residential sorting in Germany: A spatial time-series analysis of the demographic consequences of industrial sites". In: Demography, pp. 2243-2263.

Schlosberg, D. (2007). Defining Environmental Justice: Theories, Movements, and Nature. OUP Oxford.

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Environmental justice theory (EJT)

  • Original EJT: Marginalized populations face disproportionate burden of environmental hazards (Schlosberg, 2007; Rüttenauer and Best, 2021)
  • EJT Extension: Costs of the green transition,
    or limitations to participate in it.
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