Conference Agenda

Fighting climate change requires international cooperation, widespread adoption of renewable energy (RE) and public support for the energy transition. Existing narratives on how to address climate change showcase contrasting stories on cooperation versus competition with other nations. This conceptually links to moral universalism: the extent to which people exhibit the same level of altruism and trust towards strangers as towards in-group members, such as fellow citizens.

Our pre-registered information provision experiment with around 4,000 representative households from Germany and Spain provides the first causal evidence on the role of narratives for promoting policy support for climate mitigation. Bridging the literature on economic narratives, moral universalism, and the role of co-benefits for location-specific policy preferences, we randomly provide respondents with one out of four energy transition narratives and measure their relative support for foreign vs. domestic RE policies. Our 2x2 factorial design manipulates the location (own country vs. developing country) (i) where RE investments are required and (ii) where co-benefits resulting from the investment will occur. Additionally, we test whether moral universalism predicts energy transition policy preferences. Our findings suggest that economic narratives can drive public support for the energy transition. Beyond simply informing about climate change mitigation, communications that causally link public investment in RE in developing countries with co-benefits for the giving country (e.g. energy security) increase support for foreign RE policy the most. Underpinning the moral universalism literature, our analysis implies that, on average, universalist individuals display stronger support of foreign investment in RE.